Union Budget: Additional ₹30,000 crore for UP through central schemes
UP will get ₹146,498.76 crore as tax devolution, ₹15,003 crore as Finance Commission grants, ₹1,900 crore under Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), ₹12,000 crore under Jal Jeevan Mission among others
The Union Budget-2022-23, presented in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is set to shower an additional ₹30,000 crore on Uttar Pradesh through various centrally-sponsored schemes.
UP also stands to benefit from some other announcements made in the budget.
“Uttar Pradesh will get an additional ₹30,000 crore in the Union Budget for 2022-2023 in comparison to what it got in 2021-22. We are also going to benefit, to a large extent, from a number of announcements made therein,” said a senior officer of the state government.
UP will get an amount of ₹146,498.76 crore as tax devolution, ₹15,003 crore as Finance Commission grants, ₹1,900 crore under Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin), ₹12,000 crore under Jal Jeevan Mission, ₹16,350 crore for national highway projects, ₹6,241.06 crore under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan and ₹957 crore through schemes of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation programmes.
According to state government officials, 32 important road/highway projects, with a cumulative length of 1,533 km and total capital cost of ₹46,627 crore, are expected to be taken up in UP in 2022-2023. A sum of ₹1,400 crore will be spent in 2022-2023 on Ken-Betwa river interlinking project.
A large chunk of the announcement of ₹60,000 crore made for ‘Har Ghar, Nal Se Jal’ scheme to benefit 3.8 crore households, outlay of ₹48,000 crore to complete 80 lakh houses under PM Awas Yojana and other centrally-sponsored schemes will also benefit the state the most, keeping in view the large number beneficiaries of these schemes in Uttar Pradesh, the officials said.
The union government’s move to promote chemical-free national farming, with focus on farmers’ land in 5-km wide corridors along river Ganga in the first stage, is bound to benefit UP the most as the Ganga flows along a large stretch of the state.
The budget also provides for promoting use of ‘Kisan Drones’ for crop assessment, digitisation of land records, spraying of insecticides and nutrients. It also provides for giving boost to indigenous defence equipment and this will attract more investment to the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor, they said.
“UP will get most of the benefits from organic farming along the stretch of Ganga in the state. The proposed Ganga Expressway and river transport will also benefit farmers and industries along the course of Ganga. The Ken-Betwa and ‘Har Ghar, Nal Se Jal’ scheme will benefit the backward region of Bundelkhand the most,” said Professor Yashvir Tyagi, former head of department, economics, Lucknow University.
Will the budget help UP in improving its economic situation? Prof Tyagi explains: “In the pandemic period the union government allowed more fiscal deficit to take care of capital expenditure. UP, however, has not taken advantage of this and its capital expenditure has not dramatically increased.”
“The budget does not have any Uttar Pradesh specific announcements. So, it will not have much impact on UP’s economy, except the announcements for the farm sector and allocations for central schemes. UP gets a fair share in the central schemes and their implementation is also better. Otherwise, on the whole, there are apparently no big initiatives for Uttar Pradesh,” said AK Singh, former director, Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow
