Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Kailash Gahlot.
The Delhi Assembly’s budget session will convene on March 17. The budget, this time will be presented on March 21 by Revenue Minister Kailash Gahlot, who has taken charge of the finance department following Manish Sisodia’s arrest in the excise policy case and his resignation from the Cabinet, an official said.
This will be the first time since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power that the budget will not be presented by Mr. Sisodia who has held the finance portfolio since the beginning. The official said the session will begin with an address by Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena.
Since taking charge, Mr. Gahlot has held several pre-budget meetings with officials and said that the Delhi government was working on presenting a citizen-centric and progressive budget. “I would like to assure the people of Delhi that the upcoming budget will prove to be a milestone in achieving the goals of making Delhi a world-class city for its citizens and will carry forward the good work done in several fields over the past eight years,” Mr. Gahlot had said.
Mr. Sisodia, who was arrested on February 26, had earlier sought time from the CBI when summoned on February 19 as he was busy with the preparation of the budget. The last 2022-23 budget presented on March 26 last year by Mr. Sisodia was called the Rozgar Budget and had a five-year plan to create 20 lakh jobs through various initiatives.
The total budget outlay, last year was ₹75,800 crore, which was larger than 2021-2022’s budget estimate of ₹69,000 crore by 9.86%. Mr. Sisodia had said the government aims to increase the percentage of the working population of Delhi from the current 33% to 45% over the next five years.
He had said that the way to recover the economy, hit hard by successive waves of COVID-19, was to increase the consumption capacity of the people.
