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Infra, asset creation or populism before 2024 Lok Sabha polls? What’s in Yogi 2.0’s 2nd budget

2023 UP Budget includes allocations for CM Yogi Adityanath's pet welfare schemes for the girl child, smartphone & tablets for youth and 100% electricity bill waiver to private tube-well owners.

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Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh presented an ambitious budget of Rs 6.90 lakh crore this Wednesday with a thrust on infrastructure and asset creation coupled with populist measures a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

While the previous budget – the first of Yogi 2.0 – was for Rs 6,15,518.98 crore, a supplementary budget of Rs 33,769.55 crore was passed in the winter session held in December last year, taking the total estimated value of the budget to Rs 6,49,288.53 crore.

However, revised estimates of the budget of 2022-23 on the website of the UP budget suggest that the government expects to spend a total of Rs 5,85,272.29 crore from the proposed amount by 31 March –  it would remain short of spending the entire amount proposed. 

Finance minister Suresh Khanna’s budget includes CM’s pet welfare schemes such as the Sumangala Yojana, mass marriage scheme, destitute widows, smartphones and tablets for the youth, Divyang Pension Yojana, roads and bridges development, irrigation projects, and 100 per cent electricity bill waiver to private tube-well owners. Khanna, who was presenting his fourth consecutive budget, is also one of the senior-most ministers in the BJP government.


Also read: Yogi govt cancels 2012 allotment of 72 industrial plots to minister Rakesh Sachan, orders probe


Provisions for farmers

In the over 1.42-hour budget speech, Khanna announced a total Rs 7,248 crore budgetary provision for the pension scheme for farmers and old persons while Rs 11,952 crore and 70 lakh was announced for main, medium and minor irrigation projects. A total of Rs 900 crore has been allocated to provide water to farmers through canals and government tube wells.

Further, a provision of Rs 1,500 crore has been made to give a 100 per cent discount to private tube well consumers in electricity bills– up from the 50 per cent given in the previous budget.

A total allocation of Rs 3,600 crore has been made for the distribution of tablets and smartphones under the Swami Vivekanand Yuva Sashaktikaran Yojana.

Further, Rs 1,050 crore has been allocated towards the Mukhayamantri Kanya Sumangla Yojana, which supports a girl child right from her birth to her marriage, and Rs 600 crore has been allocated for the mass marriage scheme. A total of Rs 4,032 crore has been allocated for the maintenance and nutrition grant for destitute widows.

Infra maintenance, asset creation

The budget saw a major thrust on maintenance of existing infrastructure and creation of new assets and big allocations for development of road and bridges, metro projects, maintenance of roads, flood control and drainage and urban expansion.    

Rs 3,000 crore has been allocated for the CM Urban Expansion/New City Promotion Scheme.

Out of the Rs 1,150 crore announced for different Metro projects in the state, Rs 585 crore has been allocated for the Kanpur Metro project while Rs 465 crore has been allocated to the Agra Metro rail project. A total of Rs. 100 crores has been allocated for the metro projects planned in Varanasi, Gorakhpur and other cities.

Another Rs 550 crore has been proposed as expenditure for the defence corridor project and the Bundelkhand Expressway while Rs 200 crore has been proposed for an industrial corridor in Gorakhpur on both sides of Gorakhpur Link Expressway.

A total of Rs 21,159 crore has been proposed for the construction of roads and bridges in the state, Rs 62,09 crore and 50 lakh has been allocated for maintenance of roads and bridges while Rs 3,473 crore has been proposed for bridges and roads for agricultural marketing facilities. 

Central, state govt schemes

Budgetary allocations have been made for several central government schemes.  Rs 1,547 crore has been allocated to PM Ayushman Bharat health infrastructure mission and Rs 1,655 crore for the PM Aatma Nirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana, both schemes aiming to augment the healthcare infrastructure.

For the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0 scheme, a provision of Rs 5,616 crore has been made, which Khanna said, was an increase of 180 per cent from the Rs 2,000 crore proposed in the 2022-23 budget. According to the central government, AMRUT 2.0 aims at making cities’ water ‘secure’ and provide universal coverage of water supply through functional taps to all households in the statutory towns of the country along with providing sewage/septage management to all households of 500 cities covered in the first phase of the scheme.

For the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, which aims to create garbage-free cities, a total of Rs 2,707 crore and 86 lakh has been allocated while Rs 9,000 crore has been proposed for the PM Awas Yojana (rural), a central scheme to provide housing to the rural poor. Another Rs 5,966 crore has been proposed for the PM Gram Sadak Yojana, a central scheme to provide road connectivity to villages.

The government has also proposed Rs 1,203 crore for the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana (rural).

2022-23 budget target not met

As mentioned earlier, while Rs 6,49,288.53 crore of budget expenditure, including the supplementary budget, was proposed in 2022-23, the revised estimates of the budgetary allocation show that Rs 5,85,272.29 crore is likely to be spent by 31 March, when the financial year 2022-23 ends.

Speaking to ThePrint about the unspent amount, Yashvir Tyagi, former head of the economics department at Lucknow University, said, “This means that the government has not been able to fully formulate the programmes as against what was expected in the total budget expenditure proposed in 2022-23. A better strategy is required to ensure allocation of budget to allied departments so that they can implement the programmes well within the time. Presently, the trend is to make announcements to impress the populace.” 

He, however, added that the budget has an increased thrust on the capital expenditure which suggests an emphasis on creation of assets and infrastructure which was welcome. “It remains to be seen how much of the budget allocated is finally spent,” he said.

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)


Also read: How Yogi govt banked on ‘UP growth story’ pitch to woo diaspora — MoUs ‘worth Rs 55,015 cr’ likely


 

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