"You cannot ignore election."
This was how Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit responded to observations that her budget was "populist" and aimed at wooing voters for the assembly polls slated for November.
However, she said the budget was not prepared keeping elections in mind.
"Through the budget, government plans various projects and schemes. Incidentally this is an election year," she told reporters after presenting the budget in the assembly.
With assembly election just months away, Dikshit did not propose any new tax in her Rs 37,450-crore budget for 2013-14, which mainly focused on social welfare schemes while slashing or removing VAT on a number of household items.
Asked what was there in the budget for the common man reeling under spiralling prices of essential commodities, Dikshit said "the whole budget is for the common man".
On expectation that government would provide some relief for power consumers in the form of raising the cap for extending subsidy, she said no such relief can be provided till Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission finalises tariff for 2013-14.
"Till DERC announces the new tariff, we cannot make such announcements," she said.
Dikshit said though no new tax has been proposed, the focus will be on to ensure better tax collection.
"We are moving towards a system under which people will automatically come and pay tax. We will ensure better compliance of tax administration," she said.
In her budget speech, she announced steps to streamline the tax administration to make the system "simpler".
"To further simplify setting up of business in Delhi and improving transparency, I propose to introduce a new facility of online registration under the Delhi Value Added Tax Act and Central Sales Tax Act," Dikshit said.
"This facility will reduce the physical interface between the taxman and the tax payer who will no longer need to visit the tax department. The entire chain of events including registration, filing of returns, payment of tax, downloading of central statutory forms and self assessment will henceforth be effected online," she announced.
