Budget a bundle of ‘lie and deceit’, says Maken

Tribune News Service 

Advertisement

New Delhi, March 29

Terming the Delhi Budget 2016-2017 a bundle of “lie and deceit”, the Congress said that there is a massive shortfall in collection of taxes and in spending Plan funds. 

The Budget presented yesterday by Finance Minister Manish Sisodia made it clear that the government had failed in its target to collect revenue as there was a 7.63 per cent shortfall in its compilation, said Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Ajay Maken.

Addressing a press conference, Maken said there was a big gap in Plan and non-Plan spending and because of that, development works have come to a standstill. There was a shortfall of Rs 3,000 crore in VAT collection that resulted in a fall in growth.

“The government is misguiding the public by misrepresenting the facts,” he said. 

In the present Budget, an increase of 10.53 per cent in sales tax has shown, which is being projected as a very high figure. In the Congress regime’s financial year 2010-2011, there was an increase of 26 per cent and 17.86 per cent in 2012-2013. The present Budget has pegged VAT collection at 13.63 per cent, whereas it was 18.28 per cent in 2010-2011, 29.17 per cent in 2011-12 and 24.99 per cent in 2012.2013 during the Congress regime, he said. 

Maken said the government had totally failed in the spending of Plan funds as out of Rs 19,000 crore, only Rs 11,900 crore was spent up to March 21, 2016, while Finance Minister Manish Sisodia, in his Budget speech, had claimed that the government had spent Rs 16,400 crore.