 "Adityanath's budget to focus on BJP's 'Sankalp Patra' poll promises")
The first state budget of the re-elected Yogi Adityanath government on Thursday, will focus on fulfilling the promises made in the BJP's 'Sankalp Patra' for the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The state's Finance Minister Suresh Khanna, who will be presenting the Budget later in the day, said: "We are proceeding ahead in accordance with the promises made in the BJP's Sankalp Patra for the 2022 U.P. polls. This budget will be to implement promises made in the Sankalp Patra."
He said that the focus on the budget will be on education, health, youth and women, as well as on the creation of infrastructure, agriculture and jobs for the youth.
Asked about the size of the Budget, Khanna said: "We had a Budget size of Rs 5.66 lakh crore (including supplementary budget) in 2021-2022. Every year, the size goes up due to inflation. So, we will have a higher budgetary size which may go up to Rs 6 lakh crore or more."
He said that the state government was working on mobilising additional resources and steps have been taken to give a boost to the economy of Uttar Pradesh.
"As far as the objective of boosting the size of the state's economy to one trillion dollars is concerned, we have taken steps in that direction, too. It is, however, difficult to confine this to a deadline. We will surely achieve this target as expected by Niti Aayog.
"We have floated global bids for the appointment of a consultant. It may take a month to complete the process. We have taken various other measures, too. Uttar Pradesh's third ground breaking ceremony is scheduled for June 3 to implement more MoUs signed at the Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit-2018," Khanna added.
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Asked about the size of GSDP, the state Finance Minister said: "Our economy is growing day by day. Our GSDP is going up. It was Rs 12.47 lakh crore when we came to power in 2017. Our GSDP may have gone up to around Rs 20 lakh crore now."
He said that the government was maintaining strict financial discipline.
"We have followed provisions of FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management) Act despite the adverse impact of Covid-19 on the state's economy. We have taken steps to check wasteful expenditure. We were the first ones to abolish the provision of the state government paying the income tax of ministers while the employees paid their own taxes. This provision was introduced during the tenure of the Congress. We don't understand why this provision was made at all."
--IANS
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