By IANS
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s government Tuesday presented a tax-free budget with nearly 22 percent of its total outlay earmarked for infrastructure development, showing her clear sense of priority for the country’s most populous and one of its least developed states.
The budget marks an 11 percent hike over last year’s annual budget of Rs.100,100 crore (Rs.1001 billion) budget, Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Laljee Verma told the state assembly here.
With a total outlay of Rs.22,554 crore (Rs.225.54 billion) for infrastructure, “we have taken the infrastructure allocation up by nearly 22 percent,” state Cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told a media briefing after the budget presentation.
“This is besides an investment of Rs.40,000 crore (Rs.400 billion) to be made by the private sector into the state’s largest ever infrastructure project in the form of the 1,100-km long Ganga Expressway,” he said.
Described as Mayawati’s “dream project”, the expressway is aimed at transforming the economy of the state through the emergence of several commercial and industrial hubs along the route – stretching from the far eastern corner of the state in Ballia to Noida at the western tip on the edge of the national capital.
“The construction of the expressway will entail creation of a couple of link expressways too,” Singh said.
While the budget makes a passing reference about its plans to push the development of the Taj International Airport and an aviation hub at Greater Noida – of which a proposal was pending clearance of the central government – a sum of Rs.2,498 crore (Rs.24.98 billion) has been earmarked for development of roads.
In the light of the deteriorating state of power in the state, this year’s budget has made a handsome allocation of Rs.10,300 crore (Rs.103 billion) for the energy sector. This includes an outlay of Rs.3,906 crores (Rs.39.06 billion) for new projects and Rs.2,341 crore (Rs.23.41) for strengthening the distribution network.
With an equally keen focus on education, the budget proposes to take up construction of 2,500 primary schools and 4,000 upper primary schools besides creation of 15,000 additional classes in the state’s existing schools.
Another area that has received Mayawati’s priority is the development of the poverty-ridden Bundelkhand region – inhabited by about 10 million people – where starvation deaths on account of continued drought for the past four years had set alarm bells ringing for the government.
Besides a heavy allocation of Rs.4 billion towards drip irrigation to meet the water scarcity in the region, the government has decided to waive interest on all agricultural loans taken by farmers.
A medical college has been planned in the backward Bundelkhand district of Banda. The college is to be named after Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) icon Bhimrao Ambedkar and will be built at a cost of Rs.3.5 billion.
Besides, a number of other smaller employment generation and anti-poverty schemes have been planned for the region.