Amid din by opposition parties in the Assembly, the Yogi Adityanath government tabled its second supplementary budget of 2018-19 totalling over Rs 8,054 crore on the second day of the four-day winter session of the state legislature on Wednesday.
On August 27, the Yogi government had tabled the first supplementary budget to the tune of Rs 34,833.24 crore for the current fiscal. Earlier in February, the government had presented the annual budget of Rs 4.26 lakh crore for 2018-19. With the two supplementary grants, the budget size has now increased to Rs 4.69 lakh crore.
Of the total supplementary budget of Rs 8,054 crore, capital and revenue heads comprise Rs 4,645 crore and Rs 3,409 crore respectively.
Of the total amount, as much as Rs 5,018 crore is Central assistance and grants and actual additional expenditure by state government will be Rs 3,894 crore.
In the second supplementary grants, the state government has sought Rs 300 crore for green -field Jewar airport in Greater NOIDA and Rs 200 crore for Ayodhya airport.
Apart from Civil Aviation department, the government has sought additional allocations for Energy, Agriculture, Excise, Medical, Home, Transport, Environment, Public Works, Justice and Social Welfare departments besides Kumbh Mela and Swacch Bharat Mission.
For Power sector, the government sought Rs 700 crore for UDAY (Ujjwala Assurance Discom Yojna) for UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) against operative losses. The centrally -sponsored UDAY scheme is for restructuring of power distribution (discom) companies.
The has government also sought Rs 2,935 crore for Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojna.
For Kumbh Mela, an additional demand under Urban Development department was raised for Rs 100 crore. The government has already made provision of Rs 1,500 crore in the budget for Kumbh Mela and has also provided Rs 800 crore in the first supplementary.
The government also sought Rs 10 crore for Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University to be set up in Lucknow. The government also sought Rs 300 crore for roads and bridges in rural areas and rail over bridges.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the government had judiciously utilised the allocated budgets so far.
He claimed that the revenue base has been expanded under different heads, including Goods and Services Tax (GST), stamp and registration, transport, excise etc.
The Chief Minister said that the state had garnered an additional Rs 10,000 crore GST collections, while Excise collections were higher by Rs 4,900 crore followed by Stamp and Registration, Mining and Transport departments at Rs 1,600 crore, Rs 658 crore and Rs 400 crore respectively.
“So far, there were only 13 medical colleges, in the state, we are now working on setting up 15 new medical colleges, apart from a cancer institute in Varanasi,” Yogi added.
Against the backdrop of crushing defeats in Hindi states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh is leaving no stone unturned to repeat its 2014 poll performance. In 2014, the BJP and its ally Apna Dal had won 73 of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
With additional funds, the government would loosen its purse for projects to keep the public in good humour in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, when BJP mascot and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek re-election against a joint opposition.