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From infrastructure to women empowerment: Key highlights of UP Budget
Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna on Wednesday tabled the "development-oriented" Budget 2023-24 in the state Legislative Assembly with a focus on infrastructure.
Uttar Pradesh finance minister Suresh Khanna on Wednesday tabled the state's annual budget for the financial year 2023-24 and the second budget for ‘Yogi 2.0’. Khanna announced that a 16.8% growth in state GDP has been registered while the employment rate is down to 4.2%. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath presided over a meeting of the state cabinet to give a nod to the budget.
The annual budget, with an approximate size of ₹7 lakh crore, focused on infrastructure development, welfare schemes and empowerment of youths and women in the state, as expected.
The 2023 UP budget assumes significance and is an opportunity for the Yogi government to woo different sections of society including, youths, women, farmers and deprived classes etc because of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections slated for April-May 2024. At a high level meeting recently, Yogi Adityanath had indicated that the new budget would be in accordance with the aspirations of the people.
On May 26 last year, the state government had presented an annual budget of ₹6.15 lakh crore. A supplementary budget of ₹33,769.55 crore was presented on December 5, 2022, taking the total size of the UP budget in 2022-2023 to ₹6.50 lakh crore. An increase of about 10% in the outlay may take the annual budget for 2023-2024 to nearly ₹7 lakh crore.
Here is a section-wise roundup of key takeaways:
Students: ₹3,600 crore allotted for the provision of tablets and smartphones to eligible students of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Empowerment Scheme
Women: ₹1,050 crore under Chief Minister Kanya Sumangala Yojana, which offers financial assistance to the guardians or parents of two girl children in one family
₹4,032 crore for destitute widows
₹600 crore for Samuhik Vivah scheme for the marriage of all girls of all classes
₹150 crore under the marriage grant scheme for daughters of poor people belonging to other backward classes
Infrastructure: An outlay of ₹21,159 crore has been announced for construction of roads, bridges; ₹6,209 crore for maintenance
Khanna said ₹3,473 crore is proposed for the work of bridges and roads for agricultural marketing facilities and ₹1,525 crore for roads in rural areas.
While ₹1,700 crore is proposed for the construction of railway overhead bridges and ₹1,850 crore for other bridges, the budget proposed ₹2,588 crore for widening/strengthening and new works of state highways.
With religious tourism in mind, the budget proposed ₹1,000 crore for the development of 'Dharmarth Marg' (roads to religious places).
The budget also proposed ₹3,000 crore for maintenance of roads and ₹2,500 crore for construction from the State Road Fund, Khanna said.
A provision of ₹100 crore for the implementation of the metro rail project in Varanasi, Gorakhpur and other cities
For Gorakhpur Industrial Corridor, set to be established near the Gorakhpur Link Expressway, the state government has proposed an outlay of ₹200 crore
₹1,306 crore set aside for the Delhi-Ghaziabad Meerut Corridor Regional Rapid Transit System project
₹200 crore for the Unity Mall where One District One Product (ODOP) products are sold
Health, Jobs, Research: A budget provision of ₹7,248 crore proposed for old age/farmer pension scheme; ₹1,120 cr for Divyang Pension Yojana
₹12,631 crore outlay for various programmes under National Rural Health Mission, ₹400 crore for implementing Ayushman Bharat scheme
₹20 crore for State Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development
₹401 crore has been set aside for the implementation of Uttar Pradesh Electronics Manufacturing Policy, ₹85 crore 89 lakh for state Data Center and ₹60 crores for Information Technology and Startups Policy
₹20 crore has been earmarked for the Agriculture Accelerator Fund to encourage agritech startups in rural areas
Creation of 20 thousand jobs in next 5 years under UP Tourism Policy 2022 with an investment target of ₹10 lakh crore
Other highlights: ₹1,000 crore for development of residential facilities for cops
₹10 crore allocated for purchase of vehicles by State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF)
₹850 crore set aside for new police commissionerates
(With agency inputs)
