'Revenue surplus; dedicated to 25 core residents': UP FM Suresh Khanna

LUCKNOW: With a focus on 'garib', 'annadata', 'yuva' and 'nari', finance minister Suresh Khanna presented a revenue surplus budget with a major push to infrastructure development to re-establish Uttar Pradesh's position as an 'expressway pradesh'. It also focuses on research & development and Information Technology.

This is Khanna's sixth and Yogi Adityanath govt's ninth consecutive budget. The Rs 8,08,736 crore budget has new schemes worth Rs 28,478 crore and is 9.8% bigger than the previous one.

Of the total budget outlay, Rs 5.83 lakh crore has been earmarked for revenue expenditure, while revenue receipts are pegged at Rs 6.63 lakh crore, giving the state a surplus of Rs 80,000 crore. Rs 2.26 lakh crore is for capital expenditure, while the capital outlay estimate stands at Rs 1.65 lakh crore.

The highest outlay of Rs 1.06 lakh crore has gone to the education sector, followed by Rs 61,070 crore to energy and Rs 50,550 crore. Following the trend, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is the scheme with highest Rs 23,012 crore allocation, followed by Jal Jeevan Mission at Rs 16,000 crore. The allocation to the PM Awas Yojana has been enhanced to Rs 9744 crore. Similarly, MNREGA gets Rs 5,372 crore.

Khanna began his budget address impromptu with a few lines dedicated to the 'devotion and sincerity' of CM Yogi Adityanath. "The budget has been prepared under the leadership of a man who does not have any personal agenda and desire. The budget is dedicated to the welfare of the 25 crore people of the state," Khanna said before reading out the written speech.

Even though almost all the sectors have been taken care of in the budget, the highlight is the budgetary provision for the construction of five new expressways, which, once completed, would cover most parts of the state.

As per the proposals, a greenfield expressway will connect Jewar Airport to Ganga Expressway via Bulandshahr Link Expressway; Ganga Expressway would be expanded from Meerut to Haridwar and Purvanchal Expressway would connect with the proposed Vindhya Expressway.