No new tax, plenty of promises in NDMC’s budget for Delhi residents

NEW DELHI:  The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has not proposed any new taxes in the next financial year in its budget announced on Wednesday keeping in mind the situation created by the pandemic. The civic body, which manages the Lutyens’ Zone and adjoining areas of the national capital, presented a budget with a moderate surplus of Rs 136.18 crore in the current financial year and Rs 172.47 crore for 2021-22.

“The financial year 2020-21 commenced in an unprecedented manner with a complete national lockdown on account of global Covid-19 pandemic which over the coming months only intensified followed by phase-wise unlocking process. I can say with confidence that NDMC has been successful in ensuring all municipal services in an uninterrupted manner” said its chairman Dharmendra on Tuesday.

NDMC listed number of measures taken to ensure uninterrupted services to its citizens during Covid times especially in health, sanitation and education. Taking learning from the pandemic, the civic body has put special emphasis on cleanliness, health services on priority for the next year.  NDMC will create a ‘Disaster Management Group’ to come up with an action plan and monitor its implementation during times of disaster. It will be allocated a sum of Rs 10 crore.

NDMC will establish a 50-bed Ayush hospital and also take up a new programme ‘AYUSH at doorstep in NDMC Schools and Old age homes’. A pilot project will be started to set up new science parks in five NDMC/Navyug schools in where students will have access to various apparatus.  The many major gardens in NDMC area will be taken up for major revamp to make them ‘world-class’ gardens. 

Civic agency has also proposed to start ‘Palika Net’—a complete reassessment of its data bandwidth requirement and create a single data back bone ‘Palika Net’ across NDMC area to cater to all of its applications with redundancy. The NDMC has proposed to give a sum of Rs 10 crore RWAs and Market Trade Associations (MTAs) of the NDMC area in the year 2021-22 with an objective to provide scope for local initiatives and flexibility for local action by the RWAs or the MTAs.