New body proposed to address Delhi's development issues

New Delhi: Delhi Government on Tuesday proposed to set up Metropolitan Planning Body for comprehensive development of the city. At present, the state government has no direct role in the city planning made by DDA and purchases land from it at a very high rate for various projects.

"This body will address the specific issues of development of social and physical infrastructure for unplanned settlements, unauthorised colonies and rural areas of Delhi," deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told the assembly on Tuesday.

Sisodia also proposed that land should be made available to the city government free of cost for infrastructure development and also the huge resources accumulated by DDA must be shared for the development of the city. Delhi is among the biggest contributors to central taxes still the city is being deprived of grants from the Centre.

"The contribution of city in taxes is significant as compared to other cities. Still its share in central taxes has remained stagnant at Rs 325 crore since 2001-02. The fourteenth central finance commission has recommended increasing the devolution of central taxes to states from 32 per cent to 42 per cent. Had this recommendation been applied then Delhi would have received around Rs 25,000 crore for five years (2015-20)," Sisodia said.

Government data shows that the service sector is major contributor in Delhi's economy with a share of 87.48 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), followed by industry and agriculture sectors.

According to the government statistics, GSDP of Delhi at current prices in the current year is likely to attain a level of Rs 4,51,154 crore showing a growth of 15.35 per cent over the previous year. "At constant prices, Delhi's economy is poised to grow at the rate of 8.2 per cent during 2014-15 compared to 7.4 per cent at national level. The contribution of Delhi to the national GDP is about 3.86 per cent, though we are only 1.4 per cent of the total population of the country," Sisodia said.

Statistics revealed that the annual per capita income in Delhi at current prices in 2014-15 is anticipated to increase to Rs 2,40,849 as per advance estimates of GSDP, which is 2.7 times higher than the per capita income at national level. "This is phenomenally higher than per capita income at national level which stands at Rs 88,533," Sisodia said.