Amidst boycott by the entire opposition, the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Wednesday approved the Rs 34,833.24-crore supplementary budget to meet the additional expenditures in the current 2018-19 financial year.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in his 80-minute-long statement on the supplementary grants, focused on the series of measures his government had taken for the welfare of farmers, particularly sugarcane growers, Dalits, OBCs, disadvantaged sections of society and for improving law and order that led to successful Investors’ Summit and investment of over Rs 60,000 crore so far.
The Chief Minister said that the government had already spent over 52 per cent of the general budget and the supplementary grants were required to fund the loan waiver of the small and marginal farmers, soft loan to the sugar mills for clearing the arrears of farmers and the power sector.
listing the achievements of his one-and-half year old government, Yogi said the schemes launched for the farmers, poor and other sections of society had yielded good results.
Taking a jibe at the Congress for staging walkout along with Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, Yogi said, “It is an unusual political combination in which the SP and BSP care little for the Congress yet the grand old party is running a ‘chipko’ movement for aligning with two caste-based parties.”
The Chief Minister added, “The opposition parties are scared of the welfare works being done for the uplift of Dalits and OBCs by the BJP government and so they staged a walkout from the House in fear of being exposed.”
Yogi also accused the opposition parties of holding the institution of state Assembly to ransom by creating disturbances in the House by trooping into the Well and raising slogans.
Targeting the SP and the BSP, the Chief Minister said, “These two parties came to power on casteist politics but they did little for the Dalits and the OBCs as they were more interested in filling their personal coffers and so deprived the poor people of the benefits of welfare schemes during the last 15 years.”
Specifically targeting the previous Samajwadi Party government for siphoning off funds from development projects, Yogi said, “Samajwadi Party sarkar ka kaam nahi karnama bolta hai”.
“The SP government acquired only 20 per cent land for Purvanchal Expressway and the cost of the road project was Rs 15,200 crore while the BJP government acquired 94 per cent of the land and the actual cost of the project is Rs 3,000 crore less — Rs 11,800 crore. The previous Chief Minister owes an answer to the people as to who was the beneficiary of the Rs 3,000 crore inflated cost of the expressway project,”he said.
The Chief Minister also lambasted the previous SP government for patronising terrorists who were recently given life term by the court.
“Samajwadi Party committed the act of treason by attempting to withdraw cases against the terrorists accused in the serial blasts at lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad district courts but it could not do so due to the intervention of the High Court,” the Chief Minister said.
Yogi said that the Bharatiya Janata Party government was doing everything to benefit the farmers and in the supplementary budget, one-third of the amount was dedicated to the agriculture sector.
He also said that UP had constructed over 1.25 crore toilets while under the PM Awas Yojana, more than eight lakh houses were built.
Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal had tabled the supplementary budget in the Assembly amid ruckus by the opposition over the law and order on Monday.
The Assembly approved the supplementary budget without any amendment along with the related appropriation bills. Earlier in February, the Assembly had approved around Rs 4.26 lakh-crore annual budget for 2018-19 fiscal
In the supplementary budget, the maximum provision of Rs 5,535 crore has been made for clearing the arrears of sugar cane farmers for the 2017-18 crushing season.