Mar 25, 2025 07:25 PM IST
Delhi’s BJP government presents a ₹1 lakh crore budget, boosting spending by 31.5%, balancing political needs and infrastructure demands amid economic inequality.
Budgets are as much about messaging as they are about hard-headed macroeconomics. The first budget by the newly elected BJP government in Delhi must have been prepared with this in mind. By presenting Delhi’s first budget with a targeted spending of ₹1 lakh crore, the government has scored an important political point.
The fact that Delhi government’s spending is expected to go up by a massive 31.5% between the 2024-25 Revised Estimates and the 2025-26 Budget Estimates (BE) means that the national capital, which is home to more than 20 million people, will see a big fiscal boost. That Delhi will also see almost a 10-percentage point increase in the share of capital expenditure — it is expected to double from ₹14,000 crore to ₹28,000 crore — should also offer some respite to its beleaguered infrastructure. This means that, at least in intent — there is no guarantee of BE numbers necessarily translating into actual spending — the new BJP government has managed to maintain a balance between its political imperatives and Delhi’s infrastructural needs. The national capital, which has great economic dynamism but also very high levels of economic inequality, deserves exactly this. In many ways, this was the crux of the mandate which the BJP received in the elections held in February.
To be sure, a lot of the increase in budgetary spending for Delhi is coming from funds which have been given from the central government. While some of these funds could be a reflection of favourable political alignment with both Delhi and Union being ruled by the BJP, part of these funds could have been availed by the previous Aam Admi Party (AAP) government had they implemented central schemes such as Ayushman Bharat in Delhi.
Another interesting statistic from the budget is that the AAP government ended up with almost a ten per cent shortfall in its election year spending compared to what it had announced in the 2024-25 Budget. Did the constant friction between the AAP government and the central government’s nominee, namely, the lieutenant-governor, on governance issues play a role in this? The AAP can cry foul about this given the fact that a lot of bureaucracy in Delhi was not under its control, but there is an important message for anti-BJP parties outside Delhi as well. They should be careful about dragging their political conflicts into the realm of governance for their own good.
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