Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal presented the first Budget of Yogi Adityanath Government for 2017-18 fiscal in the Assembly on Tuesday, which included provisions for farm loan waiver.
The first Budget of the BJP regime is revenue surplus and tax free. Against an estimated requirement of Rs 36,000 crore for farm loan waiver, the Government has sought provisions of Rs 32,399 crore for the current fiscal. The Government had to face embarrassing moments in the House during the tabling of the Budget when Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal was taken ill while reading out his speech. Agarwal (74) started reading the speech at 12.20 pm but after reading a few pages, he felt uneasy and sought permission of the Chair to read a prepared text by sitting. The Minister however could not continue reading even after sitting due to low blood pressure and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna came to his rescue to read the remaining part of the speech. leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary asked the Chair to adopt the speech as read when the minister complained of uneasiness after reading merely 37-38 pages of the 63 page budget speech.
In his speech, the Finance minister said that the budget would take the state forward on high trajectory of growth which has been pegged at 10 per cent for the next five years. Farm loan waiver was a major promise in the BJP's poll manifesto and its fulfillment was a challenge before the Yogi government which completed 100 days in office recently.
The Chief Minister was present in the House when the Finance minister read out the budgetary proposals on the opening day of the budget session. Agarwal said that the focus of the government was on rural development as well as ensuring overall development of the state. Backward Bundelkhand region was all set to get special attention from the government. Agarwal cited the single window system, power-for-all and Make-in-UP as some of the key initiatives of the BJP government. The Finance minister announced that a new textile policy was being worked out and also apprised the House of the GST rollout. Focusing on its Hindutava agenda by rationalizing unnecessary expenditure, Agarwal said that the budget was pro-people with no fresh taxes and the focus being given to rural sector, infrastructure and other priority areas with health getting the highest allocation besides education. The total expenditure of the government has been pegged at Rs 3, 84,659.71 crores which is an increase of 10.9 per cent from the previous fiscal.
In the budget, new projects and schemes worth Rs 55,781.96 crores were also introduced in the schedule of new demands. The total receipt of government is estimated to be around Rs 3, 77,190.88 crores thus the deficit would be around Rs 7,468.63 crores. Claiming that the government would aim to achieve a double digit growth within the next couple of years, Agarwal said that the fiscal deficit has come down to 2.97 percent from 3.01 per cent during the last fiscal. The total debt also decreased to 28.6 per cent from over 30 per cent of the gross state domestic product.
The Finance minister said that the government has made provisions for Metro Rails in some select cities while Poorwanchal Expressway and Bundelkhand Expressway would be the government's priority for development of the backward region. Agarwal said that Ddigital India would pave the way for development of the state while 'Power for all' by October next year would be achieved at any cost. To pursue its Hindutava agenda, the government announced to spend another Rs 800 crores under 'Prasad Yogna' for development of infrastructural facilities in Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura, Rs 200 crores for setting up a cultural centre in Varanasi, Rs 20 crore for construction of Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan in Ghaziabad besides Rs 500 crores being allotted for preparations of Ardha Kumbha Mela in Allahabad in 2019. The government would also link all religious and tourist places with helicopter services by investing Rs 25 crore, while Rs 10 crore would be given for developing Vindayanchal, Rs 5 crore for promoting tourism in Nagla Chandrabhan - the birth place of Deen Dayal Upadhaya and Rs 3 crore for organizing Ramayana conclave. In the law and order field, the government has proposed to appoint 33,200 police personnel including 30,000 constables and 3,200 sub-inspectors while 1.50 lakh policemen would be recruited in the next five years. As per the budget proposal, the state government has set a target of collecting Rs 65,000 crores as GST. This amount also includes Rs 36, 397 crore as sales tax. A shortfall of Rs 15,111 crore is estimated during the fiscal 2017-18 due to implementation of the GST from July 1. The target for the state state excise is Rs 20,593 crore while that of stamps and registration is Rs 17, 458 crore. In the non -tax revenue, a shortfall of Rs 9,138 crore is estimated. Against Rs 27, 574 crore in 2016-17, the non tax revenue in 2017-18 is estimated to be Rs 18,436 crore.