On February 7, Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister, Rajesh Agarwal presented the state’s budget of 4.79 lakh crore rupees for 2019-20. This is 12 percent higher in comparison to 4.28 lakh crore of the previous fiscal year. Interestingly, the budget of Uttar Pradesh is significantly larger than 2.4 lakh crore rupees (Indian currency) budget of Pakistan.
The budget of Uttar Pradesh is 17.5 percent to the budget of the Union government. For the fiscal year 2017-18, the budget of union government was of 24.4 lakh crore rupees. Moreover, the budget of UP is highest among other states in India including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat which have higher GDPs than UP. The GDP of Maharashtra in 2018-19 was 27.96 lakh crore rupees i.e. almost double of the 14.89 lakh crore rupees of Uttar Pradesh for the same year. The total expenditure of Maharashtra for 2018-19 was estimated at 3, 67,281 crore rupees while for UP, it was 4, 28,385 crore rupees for the year 2018-19. To put this in perspective, the spending to GDP ratio for the state of Uttar Pradesh is 28.6 percent while for Maharashtra it stands at 13.1 percent.
The vast difference is primarily due to the higher receipt that Uttar Pradesh gets from the central government. UP’s share in Central Taxes is 1, 33,548 rupees while grants-in-aid from centre accounts for 63,549 crore rupees. The total receipt of UP from the central government is around 1.97 lakh crore rupees. On the other hand, the share of Maharashtra in central taxes is 43,515 and grants-in-aid from centre stands at 31,629 crore rupees. Therefore, the total receipt of Maharashtra from the central government is 75 thousand crore which is almost one-third of the funds received by Uttar Pradesh.
In the budget, the UP government has taken care of almost every section of society. The government allotted 2,579 crore rupees for old age and farmer pension schemes. The farmers through this scheme would get a fixed amount from the state government. Moreover, education and health have been majorly focused by the Yogi Government. “50 crore rupees has been proposed in the budget to set up the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University in Lucknow. Similarly, Rs 10 crore has been proposed for setting up an Ayush University in the state,” said Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal. Another allocation of 50 crore rupees has been made for Wi-Fi facility in colleges and universities. The government has also allotted 242 crore rupees for Sanskrit Pathshalas in order to promote the ancient language of Sanskrit. The Yogi government made an allocation of 2,275 crore for the Mid-Day Meal programme.
Giving special attention to the welfare of cows and farmers, the UP government allotted 650 crore rupees for the same. An amount of 247 crore has been set aside by the Yogi government for the welfare of cattle in rural areas while 200 crore has been allotted for Kanha Gaushala in urban areas. Under Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay Small Dairy Scheme, the state government aims to set up 10,000 dairy units with a budget of 64 crore.
Special attention has been given to the infrastructure development in cities like Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Meerut, and Jhansi. The budget of 150 crore has been earmarked for the metro project in these cities. Yogi government has taken care of all sectors be it health, education and women empowerment. 18,845 crore has been allocated to basic education alone.