AAP govt presents Outcome Budget to bring transparency

New Delhi: The Delhi government on Wednesday brought out the Outcome Budget 2017-18, which tells the outputs and outcomes of spending of funds allocated in the 2017-18 Delhi Budget. 

The Budget presented in the Assembly breaks down the performance of the each of the government’s schemes and programmes into two indicators — output indicators and outcome indicators, deputy chief minister and finance minister Manish Sisodia said. 

Output indicators are the services or infrastructure that government departments are required to be provided and outcome indicators tell how did the people benefited from that scheme. 

The Delhi Metro’s daily average ridership was targeted to reach 30 lakh in 2017-18, but it fell to 25.7 lakh till December, the government said on Wednesday said. The ridership had dipped in the wake of it affecting its second hike in fare.

However, the figures improved in January and February this year, with ridership of 26.85 lakhs and 26.98 lakhs, respectively, Delhi Metro had recently said. “The daily ridership, which was 28 lakhs in 016-17 and was targeted to reach 30 lakh in 2017-18, reduced to 25.7 lakh,” Mr Sisodia said. This was among the critical indicators enunciated by him, while presenting the Outcome Budget in the House. 

Meanwhile, the average daily ridership of DTC and cluster buses has increased to 41.9 lakh in 2017-18 (till December) against a target of 40 lakh, according to the report.

In education department, 24,500 students belonging to EWS and DG category were admitted to un-aided private schools through online lottery, as against 20,000 students in the previous year. It said 8,603 students were admitted in government funded colleges under Delhi University, National Law University, Ambedkar University of Delhi and Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management, compared to 7,392 students in the previous year.

As per the Outcome Budget, 764 students graduated from World Class Skill Centre, Delhi government, as against 663 in the previous year. 

It also said that 1,209 unauthorised colonies were linked with water pipelines till December 2017. 

In the power sector, Mr Sisodia said that more than 82 per cent of domestic consumers are benefitting from the AAP government’s s scheme for subsidy on power. The power department has subsidised 50 per cent of the energy charges for domestic consumers up to 400 units per month. “This has benefitted 37.28 lakh consumers (82.84 per cent) of the total 45 lakh domestic category consumers in Delhi,” he said.