UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav moved a step closer towards fulfilling the promises he had made to the people of Uttar Pradesh during elections, when he presented his maiden Budget for 2012-13 in the state Assembly on Friday.
The BSP staged a walkout as soon as the chief minister started reading his Budget speech and criticising wasteful expenditure and corruption in the Mayawati regime.
Mr Yadav’s first Budget does not impose any new taxes on the people but makes budgetary provisions for unemployment allowance (`1,100 crores), laptops and tablets to student (`2,721 crores) and loan waiver up to `50,000 for farmers (`500 crores). The state government has decided to re-launch the Kanya Vidyadhan Scheme which was scrapped during the BSP regime and for this it has made a provision of `446 crores. The state government will be spending an estimated `4,000 crores on fulfilling the promises made by the Samajwadi Party in its poll manifesto.
For the first time, the state’s Budget size has crossed `2 lakh crores and the actual deficit is to the tune of `5,783 crores. The total expenditure adds up to `2, 00,110 crores while the total receipts add up to `1, 94,327 crores.
Conforming to the Samajwadi Party ideology, the first Budget of the Akhilesh government sets aside `2,074 crores for schemes related to Muslim welfare. This is an 81 per cent increase in the Budget under this segment compared to the previous year.
The Akhilesh government has also decided to revive its famous Yash Bharti awards and the cash prize for this has been increased to `11 lakhs from the earlier `5 lakhs.