Outcome budget biggest achievement of AAP government

New Delhi: Outcome budgeting is the "biggest achievement" of the Kejriwal government in governance as it has helped remove bottlenecks to improve delivery of services and goods to the people of Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Friday while releasing performance document for 2019-20.

The outcome budget was introduced in 2017-18 as a novel idea of the ruling AAP in Delhi. For the period 2018-19, it covered all major departments and agencies combined into eight major sectors. There are total of 567 schemes which were evaluated on the basis of 2,220 output and 1,549 outcome indicators, he said.

"I consider outcome budget as the biggest achievement of our government in past 4.5 years in the field of governance," the Deputy Chief Minister said. He was speaking at a national conference on outcome budgeting organised by Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDCD).

Sisodia released the outcome budget of the Delhi government for 2019-20, saying the relevance and importance of linking budgetary outlays with outcomes has been established through this comprehensive exercise. He said outcome budget is the force behind big ticket reforms by the Delhi government in power and water supply, education, healthcare and doorstep delivery services.

Sisodia asserted that in the next couple of decades, outcome budgeting will emerge as the baseline for reforms in governance. Under the outcome budget, major programmes and schemes of various departments were identified and related output and outcome indicators were defined in a quantifiable manner.

The indicators were such as to be specific, measurable, attributable, realistic and targeted (SMART), said Jasmine Shah, vice-chairman of DDCD. Delhi's outcome budget is a Suo-moto disclosure of information and data and a top-most initiative for promotion of transparency and accountability in governance, he added.

Wi-fi may not connect Delhiites

The current Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government will not be able to fulfil the promise of providing free wi-fi facility to Delhiites as the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation's Outcome Budget has set September 2020 deadline for commissioning of the service across the city.

Assembly election in Delhi are expected to be held later this year or early next year. According to the Outcome Budget, released by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday, tender for the project will be awarded by December 31, 2019.

According to the Outcome Budget for the Public Works Department, which is responsible for executing the project in the city, the expected date for issue of request for proposals (RFP) is September 30, 2019, which was earlier June 30, 2018.

The PWD said in the outcome budgetary document that the expected date for commissioning of wi-fi hotspots at pilot stage has been set for March 31, 2020. "The expected date for commissioning of Wi-Fi hotspots at all places of Delhi is September 30, 2020," it stated.

It implies that the free wi-fi facility, a major poll plank of the Aam Aadmi Party in the 2015 Assembly elections, cannot be rolled out in the city during the current regime of Arvind Kejriwal.

In February 2018, Kejriwal had said his government would start providing free wi-fi internet service "soon".

In 2016, the AAP government had announced that more than 500 locations across East Delhi would be made high-speed wi-fi zones by the end of that year, allowing access to free Internet till a pre-determined limit daily, but it could not be implemented.