UP: Supplementary budget to seek funds for projects named after Atal

As the Yogi Adityanath government presents its first supplementary demands of grant for 2018-2019 in the assembly on Monday, it will use the opportunity to get the legislature’s nod for funds for projects in the name of former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The government may also demand funds to meet commitments regarding development projects in some areas ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

A senior officer, who did not wish to be named, said: “There will be projects in the name of former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Specific works will be carried out to keep his memories alive at places associated with him.”

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier announced that the state government would initiate projects in the name of the former PM to carry out development works at his ancestral village Bateshwar (Agra), place of education Kanpur, his first parliamentary seat Balrampur and ‘karmbhoomi’ (place of work) Lucknow that he represented five time in Lok Sabha.

After Vajpayee’s death on August 16, the state government had asked the departments concerned to suggest schemes/projects that could be incorporated in the first supplementary demands of grant.

Additional chief secretary (finance) Sanjiv Mittal had earlier set August 7 as deadline for getting proposals from different departments asking them to send proposals linked to state government’s priorities and commitment for expenditure in the current financial year.

Mittal said the proposals for a token allocation or required amount could also be sent if projects could be fully or partly executed from savings in departmental budget in the current financial year.

UP legislature’s monsoon session has already begun on August 23. In state assembly, chief minister along with the leaders of all the major political parties paid tributes to the former PM on the first day of the session.

While the supplementary budget and legislative business remains on top of the state government’s agenda, the opposition has worked out a strategy to target the government on issues concerning law and order, atrocities against women and problems of farmers etc.

As the state legislature was scheduled to mourn Vajpayee’s death on the first day of the monsoon session, the Samajwadi Party legislators assembled in front of the statue of former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh in Vidhan Bhawan on Thursday morning to draw the government’s attention to these issues.