Delhi gets ‘green budget’; highest chunks go to education, health

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 22

The Delhi Government today presented its annual budget (2018-19) at Rs 53,000 crore. 

At the centre of the budget lies the visible thrust on “going green” in the form of 26 actionable environment-friendly schemes and proposals covering four departments — environment, power, transport and PWD.

‘Green budget’ this time

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced a slew of measures to control air pollution, including announcing Rs 1 lakh incentive for industrial units to switch over to natural gas, proposing 1,000 fully-electric buses and plans to give subsidies for restaurants, e-rickshaws and procure 1,000 MW solar and green power, among others.

The government will install 1,000 indoor display panels at government buildings. The budget also talks about a pilot agriculture-cum-solar farm scheme to incentivise the installation of solar panels on agricultural farms.

The government announced subsidies of Rs 5,000 and Rs 30,000 per tandoor for restaurants replacing it with electricity or clean fuel and to firms and establishments willing to use clean fuel based on electricity generator sets apart from purchasing 60 new vehicles, body-worn cameras and e-challaning tabs.

Education gets the highest 

The education budget includes Rs 10,186 crore earmarked for revenue expenditure and Rs 1,114 crore stood for capital head to be utilised for augmentation of infrastructural facilities, safety of students and improving quality of education.

The government has proposed Rs 10 crore for self-defence training of girl students and another Rs 175 crore for installation of 1.2 lakh CCTV cameras in all its school buildings with 150-200 cameras to be installed in each school.

Sisodia said the next year, the school management committees will get Rs 5 lakh for books, teaching innovations and small maintenance works while tabs are going to be given to all teachers in government schools.

Construction of 12,748 additional classrooms and 30 new school buildings, setting up of nursery classes in 366 Sarvodaya Vidyalayas, introducing “mission Buniyad” for improving reading and maths ability of students after the success of “Chunauti” and rolling out of happiness curriculum in all its schools from nursery to Class VIII are some other major highlights this year.

Sisodia also announced his government’s plan to modernise staff rooms and coffee machines are to be installed for schoolteachers besides offering “world-class” training to teachers, he said.

Over Rs 6,700 cr allocated for health sector

Among the major takeaways of the government’s health budget are the government’s plan to introduce a universal health insurance scheme in empanelled private hospitals and government-run hospitals for which an outlay of Rs 100 crore has been made and Rs 20 crore has been put aside for offering free lab and diagnostic services to residents.

Sisodia said Rs 403 crore is proposed for mohalla clinics and polyclinics in 2018-19, while Rs 450 crore will be used in construction of new hospitals and renovation of the existing ones.

Rs 315 cr for skill-development 

The government also intends to encourage start-ups and replicate its skill-development model by setting 25 new world-class skill centres to train 25,000 youth every year and for the purpose, Sisodia announced a budgetary share of Rs 315 crore.