At the same time, encouraged by overwhelming response to its Global Investors Summit, the government also made some key announcements in the capital expenditure space in a bid to plug infrastructural gaps to facilitate investment and job creation.
“This budget is aimed at establishing the state as largest economy in the country and taking it to a 1 trillion dollar economy in next 5 Years in line with the PM’s vision,” CM Yogi Adityanath said. “130 promises were made in the Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra (of 2022). We have included 110 promises in the budget, committing Rs 64,000 crore towards fulfilling them,” he said. He said exercising fiscal discipline, the fiscal deficit has been brought down from 3.5% to 3.24% of the GDP.
In its manifesto before 2022 assembly elections, the BJP had promised farmers free electricity for irrigation. While last year, a 50% waiver in electricity for consumers of private tubewells was provided, this year, the government has announced it will waive off 100% electricity for private tubewell consumers and set aside Rs 1,500 crore for it. This may also blunt some farmer anger stemming from destruction caused by stray cattle.
While the state stands to benefit from the 66% increase in allocation announced in the union budget for PM Awas Yojana, the affordable rural housing scheme run by the state (CM Awas Yojana Grameen) for marginalised communities like Vantangiya, Musahars and others also saw a more than double hike in allocation- from Rs 509 crore allocated last year to Rs 1,204 crore set aside this year. The allocation for Jal Jeevan Mission for providing household tap drinking water supply has also been increased by 30% to Rs 25,350 crore with CM Yogi Adityanath announcing a target of providing 1 crore houses with the supply by end of 2023 financial year. The scheme is particularly important for the dry and economically backward Bundelkhand and Vindhyanchal regions and UP is one of the least performing states in the scheme.
The state has also more than doubled allotment to its scheme of providing tablets and smartphones to graduate and postgraduate students with Rs 3,600 crore allotted this year. 20 lakh students have been provided the gadgets and the state aims to reach out to 2 crore students through the scheme until 2027.
The state also announced two new expressways- Jhansi Link Expressway and Chitrakoot Link Expressway to connect Bundelkhand expressway to Chitrakoot which is one of the nodes of the defence corridor. Further- six industrial corridors with an aim to provide jobs to 5 lakh youth- four along the Purvanchal Expressway and two along the Bundelkhand expressway were announced.