More schemes on the cards in UP budget

| | Lucknow
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More schemes on the cards in UP budget

Wednesday, 23 January 2019 | PNS | Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh is set to become the first state of the country with a budget size of Rs 5 lakh crore or Rs 5 trillion. The 2019-20 fiscal budget is likely to be presented in the Assembly on February 12. The budget session will be commencing from February 5. The annual hike in the budget size for the past several decades has been little over 10 per cent, and with this increase, next year’s budget is likely to be over Rs 5.20 lakh crore.

The budget for the current 2018-19 fiscal presented and passed by the state legislature in February, 2018 was Rs 4.28 Lakh. However, later in August 2018, the state government sought the first supplementary budget of Rs 34,800 crore and followed it up in December 2018 with a second supplementary of Rs 8,000 crore. With the two supplementaries, the budget size of the 2018-19 fiscal stands at Rs 4.70 lakh crore.

The hike in budget size is usually on account of the annual five per cent hike each  in payment of dearness allowance, salary to state employees and to pensioners alongwith two per cent hike in payment of interest on outstanding loans on the state government from different sources.

The other heads of increase in the budget size are the payment of restructured outstanding loans and time and cost overrun of projects of different departments like PWD and Irrigation.

The schedule of new demands in the budget includes financial provision for new projects and schemes to be launched by the government during the fiscal also adds to the increase in budget size.

With the Lok Sabha elections less than three months away, the Yogi government is set to present a populist budget for 2019-10. The main focus will be farmers' distress. The government is banking on liberal financial support from the Union government as the Prime Minister is also likely to announce various sops to farmers in the vote on account of the Union government for the 2019-20 fiscal to be presented in Lok Sabha on February 1.

The government is likely to launch new schemes like 'Kisan Samarth Yojna’ for farming entrepreneurs where educated farmers will be given loans up to Rs 32 lakh on investing Rs 3 lakh. Of the total loan amount, as much as Rs 20 lakh will be a subsidy by the government. The government is also working on setting up 'Krishi Samarth Kendra’ and nearly 1,000 such kendras will be set up during the next three years.

On the line of 'Kanya Vidyadhan Yojna’, launched during Mulayam Singh Yadav regime (2003-2007), the state government is likely to announce 'Balika Protsahaan Yojna’ where parents of the girl child will be paid a fixed amount from the date of birth of the girl child and the final payment will be made in the year the girl attains 21 years.

The other areas of the next budget are likely to be infrastructure projects, Bundelkhand and Lucknow-Ghazipur Expressways, regional air connectivity, defence corridor, development of important pilgrimage centres and tourism projects.

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