UP Budget rolls out funds for Metro

With an eye on the assembly elections due next year, the Budget came out with an unemployment allowance for graduates.

With an eye on the assembly elections due next year, the Uttar Pradesh Budget for 2006-07 on Wednesday came out with a provision of Rs 736 crore for extending the Delhi Metro rail project to its industrial township Noida on the capital's outskirts.

HT Image

The Budget also had an unemployment allowance of Rs 500 per month for graduates.

The populist Budget, which estimated a deficit of Rs 363.96 crore, was presented in the Assembly by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who also holds the finance portfolio.

The unemployment allowance would be given starting April 1 to graduates and post-graduates, who were registered with the employment exchanges in the state as of December 31, 2005.

In his budget speech, Yadav said the government has sanctioned the Rs 736 crore for bringing the Delhi Metro to the city centre in Sector 32 of Noida.

He said the state's growth rate, which was merely 0.1 per cent in 2002-03 was expected to rise to six per cent in 2005-06.

Yadav said as per the estimates of Budget 2006-07, the state would wriggle out of the revenue deficit for the first time in 20 years.