THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
New Delhi, Dec 13: The Delhi Government was criticized by the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) funding delay. The court said that the government should not compel the court to revive its order granting access to funds from the state government’s advertisement funds.
The Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project involves the creation of semi-high-speed rail corridors that link Delhi to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Alwar in Rajasthan, and Panipat in Haryana.
Centre’s approval pending
In today’s proceedings, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government apprised the court that the budget allocation has been approved by the Delhi cabinet and is currently pending approval from the Centre. In response, the Supreme Court instructed the Delhi government to secure the Centre’s approval within a span of seven days.
The bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia had directed in November that money from the Arvind Kejriwal administration’s marketing budget for this year will be redirected if the Delhi government failed to provide funding for the Rapid Rail project.
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SC criticizes Delhi govt for prioritizing advertising funds over national project
As the court noted in a previous hearing, the issue was that the Delhi government could allocate budgetary funds of Rs 580 crore for advertisements, but it was unable to allocate the Rs 400 crore required to fund the project.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul stated, “if such national projects are affected, and if money is being spent on advertising, we would be inclined to ask the money to be directed to the infrastructure”.
The court has also stated explicitly that full compliance with its directives must occur in accordance with the timeline and that there can be no partial compliance with its decision directing the transfer of funds for the project.
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