Sisodia said that Delhi had not received any funds from the Centre under the disaster relief fund so far. (File)
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Sunday that he had written to the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asking for a Rs 5,000 crore package as Delhi’s revenue collection has suffered during the lockdown.
“Delhi government needs close to Rs 3,500 crore per month to pay employees and meet other office expenses. In the past two months, GST collection has been around Rs 500 crore each on average. Including other avenues, the Delhi government has earned Rs 1,736 crore. We need Rs 7,000 crore for two months. I have written to the minister to disburse Rs 5000 crore… We need to pay our employees such as doctors, nurses, teachers,” he said.
Sisodia said that Delhi had not received any funds from the Centre under the disaster relief fund so far.
“Of disbursals made to states from the disaster relief fund (aapada rahat kosh), Delhi has not got any funds. There are financial issues in Delhi because of this and tax collections are low. Delhi gets no help from the Centre under other circumstances either… I have requested for Rs 5,000 crore to mitigate the problems that have arisen because of lockdown,” he said.
Senior Delhi government officials said that these considerations also had the government pushing for more relaxations in the lockdown over the past month.
“The virus will not go anywhere, we have to prepare our hospitals and our people. None of this can happen without funds,” the official said.
We tried to ensure that migrant workers have to face minimum inconvenience.
