Delhi govt allocates Rs 6,919 crore to local bodies in budget

Delhi government has allocated Rs 6919 crore to the local bodies in its budget 2016-17, nearly Rs 1,000 crore more than the outlay last year.
The three BJP-ruled municipal corporations and the AAP-led Delhi government have been at loggerheads for the past several months over release of funds to the civic bodies.
"The proposed total expenditure of Rs 46,600 crore includes Rs 6,919 crore as against Rs 5,908 crore in Budget Estimate and Rs 5,999 crore in Revised Estimate 2015-16," Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia said while presenting the budget.
The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated into North, South and East Corporations or NDMC, SDMC and EDMC in 2012 and barring SDMC, the rest two municipal bodies have been running with huge financial losses.

In view of poor financial position of municipal corporations of North and East Delhi, Sisodia had last year said, "We propose to give time to Corporations to set their houses in order by giving them moratorium on loan repayment. We will not follow the practice of previous regimes of recovering principal and interest of the outstanding loan liabilities in 2015-16 from the grants to the Corporations.