New Delhi, July 30
The Lok Sabha today passed the Budget for the National Capital Territory of Delhi with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stressing the need to expand health and educational facilities around the national Capital which he termed "mini India".

Delhi's Budget, passed by a voice vote following engaging discussions in which close to 12 MPs participated, amounts to Rs 36,776 crore most of which comes from tax collections within the state.

The Finance Minister while replying to the debate on the Delhi Budget said the health facilities in the national Capital would be expanded substantially and provisions for them had been made in the Budget. Jaitley also lauded the rate of tax collections in Delhi saying 90 pc of Delhi Budget comes from the state itself.

On the health infrastructure front, Jaitley said, "Delhi has 32 speciality hospitals and six super speciality hospitals. There is a plan to add more beds to Delhi hospitals. A new medical college is proposed at Rohini and the idea is that admission to this college must begin by 2015. Also in the South Delhi seat which has no super speciality hospital, there is a proposal to build a large multi-speciality hospital."

The Budget, he said, proposed additional 50 dialysis units for Delhi which currently has 30. Also 110 ambulances, he said, would be made available to take care of the injured on Delhi roads.

Earlier in the day, several MPs, including Deepender Hooda of the Congress, Bhagwant Mann of the Aam Aadmi Party, Meenakshi Lekhi, Mahesh Giri, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Budhuri of the BJP, participated in the debate on Delhi Budget.

While Lekhi lauded Jaitley for an excellent Budget stressing the need to make compulsory self-defence lessons for girls in educational institutions. Deepender Hooda slammed the BJP for failing to live up to its promise of reducing power tariff rates. Hooda also reminded the House how Delhi residents had no problems in the 15-year Congress rule.

"It was the 49-day AAP rule which plunged Delhi into anarchy," he said, criticizing Jaitley's proposal for Rs 260 crore power subsidy, something the BJP had earlier questioned.

Bhagwant Mann, who spoke for former Delhi CM and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal, said his party did its best to bring transparency in governance.

New Delhi, July 30
A two and a half years old boy died after he fell into a pan of boiling chashni (concentrated sugar) at a sweet shop, when his mother who was carrying him was hit by an e-rickshaw in east Delhi's Trilokpuri locality on Tuesday evening.

Eyewitnesses told reporters that the boy identified as Dev was probably inside the pan for more than a minute. His mother tried taking him out, but she was also severely burnt in the process.

When the child was finally taken out, he had sustained severe burns injuries and was later declared dead at a government hospital.

The incident took place at about 4 pm when Dev's mother Pinki was carrying him, while she was going to buy milk from the market of block 14 of Trilokpuri. Pinki works as a maid, while the child's father Chhatar Singh is a rickshaw puller.

Pinki told reporters about the incident. She said, "I was going to market to buy milk when an e-rickshaw hit me from behind. My son fell into a pan of boiling hot 'chashni'. I tried to take my son out of the pan with my hands, but got burnt. Then someone tilted the pan and poured its contents outside. My son was taken out, but he was completely burnt."

Eyewitnesses claimed that no one could dip their hands into the pan to take out the child.

Dev was rushed to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital in east Delhi.

He was referred to the burns ward at the Safdarjung Hospital in south Delhi, where he was declared dead.

According to the police, the road where the incident took place is wide enough to allow vehicles to easily pass, but due to the Eid celebrations yesterday, temporary shops were set up on both sides of the road.

"The road was very congested yesterday and this led to the accident," said a police officer, privy to the details of the case.

The police have registered a case under the Indian Penal Code sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery) and 304A (causing death by negligence) against the e-rickshaw driver and the sweet shop owner.

"The e-rickshaw driver had immediately fled the site of the incident. Through our informers we learnt of the address of his residence and conducted a raid there, but he had fled. We are still searching for him. The sweet shop owner is also at fault as he had placed the frying pan on a footpath. He is also at large," said the police officer.

New Delhi, July 30
A 26-year-old married woman has alleged that she was served a spiked soft drink and raped by two to four men near the Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station on Tuesday evening.

The police have registered a case and are verifying her allegations.

Two of the accused are acquainted with the alleged victim, who stays in east Delhi's Geeta Colony locality with her husband, a taxi driver. According to the police, the questioning of some locals in Geeta Colony has revealed that one of the accused Jatin and the victim had made monetary transactions.

The woman has claimed that she had gone with two persons known to her to Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station on Tuesday evening. She met two other men not known to her near a prepaid taxi booth at the station.

"She has alleged that they offered her spiked soft drinks which made her unconscious. When she regained her consciousness, she found herself lying near the prepaid booth. She called the police control room and complained that she was raped," said a police officer.

She has told police that she suspects the accused raped her in one of the prepaid taxis, but is unsure of the events after she allegedly fell unconscious.

The police are looking for any witnesses who could corroborate the woman's statement that she found herself near the prepaid taxi booth on regaining consciousness. CCTV footage of the area is also being scanned.

The woman first alleged that only Jatin, 27, raped her. Police booked him for drugging and raping her. "Later, she suspected that more than one person could have raped her. So we added the section of gangrape based on her statement," the officer said.

Police have identified all the four accused but are yet to arrest them. "The woman was sent for a medical examination and we are investigating the case," the officer added.

New Delhi, July 30
Six persons, including two Afghan nationals, have been arrested for allegedly trafficking in heroin. The Delhi Police Special Cell which arrested them said that they have recovered 36 kilograms of "pure" heroin worth Rs 150 crore from the arrested individuals.

The accused have been identified by the police as Zamir, alias Doctor (46), who stays at Turkman Gate in old Delhi, Baba Fakruddin Sheikh, alias Fakru (40), who belongs to Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh, Saleem Khan (52), who stays at Daryaganj in central Delhi, Mohammad (48), who belongs to Kabul in Afghanistan and is presently staying at south Delhi's Lajpat Nagar locality and a woman named Sakiba (33), who belongs to Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan and stays at Bhogal in central Delhi.

The sixth accused, Chandbasha, who belongs to Kadapa, was arrested from Jaipur on July 26.

A Special Cell team has been working on transnational and inter-state drug cartels which frequently use Delhi as a transit point for both warehousing and distribution of narcotic drugs, according to the police. "Over the past year, this team has busted several cartels and has successfully recovered over 100 kilograms of fine quality heroin and cocaine," said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell).

Yadav said that the team had been developing information about heroin being smuggled from Afghanistan to India via Pakistan and that Delhi-based Afghan nationals were distributing it to different destinations with the help of an Indian businessman.

On July 26, the Special Cell were tipped off that a person code named 'Doctor' would be making such a delivery to a person named Fakru, during the late evening hours near Engineers India Limited (EIL) Office at Bhikaji Cama Place. A trap was accordingly laid and the accused were arrested.