December 12, 2023: The Delhi government is planning to create a separate head in its Budget Estimate for allocation of funds to the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) for the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), according to media reports. This comes days after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the agency for not coming up with funds for the rapid transit corridors to Alwar and Panipat. The NCRTC is a joint venture between the Centre and the states involved, which is responsible for executing the RRTS project.
The government released Rs 415 crore to the NCRTC for the RRTS project following the top court’s rap. According to an official, the Delhi government’s transport department had not allocated funds for the project under any budget head in 2023-24, mentioned in media reports.
Reports cited an official stating that the fund allocation for the RRTS project was nowhere mentioned in the Budget Estimate sent before the budget and even in the subsequent discussions between the finance and the transport departments. It meant that it was completely missed. To avoid such a recurrence, the finance department has directed the transport department to keep a budget head for the RRTS.
According to the official, the finance department has asked the transport department to mention a separate budget head for the RRTS project in the Revised Estimate for the financial year 2023-24 and in the Budget Estimate for the next fiscal.
The Delhi government is still to pay Rs 150 crore for the proposed Delhi-Panipat and Delhi-SNB (Shahjahanpur-Neemrana-Behror) RRTS corridors. The official said that the finance department has still not received any file from the transport department regarding the release of Rs 150 crore.
Under the RRTS project, semi-high-speed rail corridors connecting Delhi to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Alwar in Rajasthan and Panipat in Haryana will be constructed. The apex court had earlier acknowledged the budgetary limitations the city government cited. However, it had warned that if such national projects were to be affected and money was spent on ads, it would not refrain from directing that those funds be transferred to this project.
See also: Delhi-Meerut Metro: RRTS stations, route and latest updates
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