New Delhi: With the Delhi Government gearing up to present the financial budget for the current fiscal and the estimates for the next fiscal by the third week of March, multiple senior officials aware of developments have said that much like FY 2019-20, the next years budget will have prioritised allocation for Education, Health and the Urban Development departments. In FY 2019-20, the Education department led the way in terms of total budget expenditure with an amount of Rs 1,1846.23 crore, followed by Urban Development –– Rs 8,698.14 crore –– and Medical and Public Health spending of Rs 5,708.03 crore. Healthcare will see a significant increase in the upcoming budget which will include augmentation of new infrastructure, more projects related to health care facilities, implementation of insurance scheme, and public health programmes will be the priority in the forthcoming Budget, two senior officials said adding that the pandemic has compelled the government to allocate more funds than it has before. "Based on the proposal of Budget Estimates 2021-22, the Finance Department has received from other departments, the overall BE figures will be consolidated only after the meetings are over — probably by January 31, thereafter the increase or decrease of spending will be known," the senior official added. "Minimum capital works could be taken up in the current financial year due to the resource crunch. A few priority projects like additional classrooms, hospital projects are going on unhampered," the official told Millennium Post on account of anonymity. While presenting the budget of Rs 65,000 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal year, Sisodia had said an allocation of Rs 7,704 crore was made for the health sector which included Rs 50 crore for handling the Covid pandemic. Ahead of the Union budget, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had urged the Centre to treat Delhi on a par with the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir in the matter of its share from central taxes, the central assistance to UTs, and the disaster response fund. He appealed to the Union Finance Minister to increase the city-states allocation to at least Rs 8,150 crore in the revised estimate of 2020-21, and Rs 8,555 crore in the budget estimate for 2021-22. During the meeting, he had also requested a one-time grant of Rs 12,000 crore. "This is an initial allocation; let me assure the people that we will increase this as and when required. We will leave no stone unturned to tackle COVID-19," he had said.

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