New Delhi: After over five meetings with HODs of the finance ministry, nearly 500 indicators were identified and defined for output and outcome for all major Government schemes and targets were set.
However, Sisodia says, due to non availability of data, the Government zeroed on about 300 indicators. While, this is the first year, the process is expected to be more rigorous next year.
Clearly, the vision behind this is to make the budget both more accountable and more transparent. Sisodia says, "We are bringing the Government closer to the citizen and the elected representatives, now anyone can ask us questions on our targets."
Interestingly, the idea for an outcome budget came from Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. "When Jaitley spoke of an 'outcome budget', it set me thinking. However, Jaitley has not created indicators, we have created indicators for infrastructure as well as human resource. There is a huge difference between theirs and ours," says Sisodia.
The AAP Government hopes to break away from the way budget is presented, perceived as well as measured. Now, not spending, but actual and tangible benefit to people will be the true indicator of a budget's success.
"Note ban has led to contraction in the city's estimated GSDP for the ongoing financial year (at constant prices) although it will still be higher than the projected growth at the national level," Sisodia told PTI.
At current prices, the national capital's economic growth has been pegged at 12.76 per cent. "When we allocate money for skywalk, merely constructing it would not be counted as success. Its success would depend on how many people actually use it. That in a nutshell explains the objective of the outcome component," he said.
Eyeing the municipal polls, the government has earmarked a record Rs 7,571 crore for the civic bodies, which comes to about 15 per cent of the total allocation.
The government alloted Rs 11,300 crore for education, about 24 per cent of the total Budget, to the education sector. Last year's allocation was Rs 10,690 crore.
An outlay of Rs 5,736 crore has been made for the health sector, a priority area for AAP government. Rs 1,156 crore has been set aside for the phase four of the Delhi Metro while Rs 100 crore has been earmarked for developing bus terminals and depots.
Sisodia said Delhi's contribution to India's GDP has increased from 3.94 per cent in 2011-12 to 4.08 per cent in 2016-17.
The size of the budget for 2017-18 is Rs 48,000 crore.
(with inputs from PTI)
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