UP’s first paperless budget today, outlay may increase

Infra projects may get large chunk of funds

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government will present the state’s first paperless budget (2021-22) here on Monday amid indications about an increase in the budget size this year, too, in the backdrop of the Covid-19 impact on the economy.

With this, UP would become the first state in the country to switch over to a paperless budget after the Union government did so in Parliament on February 1, an official claimed.

“I believe the state’s budget will be historic this time. As the state government will present a paperless budget this year, all eyes are set on it,” said state speaker assembly Hriday Narayan Dikshit.

The state government is reimbursing a sum of up to Rs 50,000 to every legislator to buy an iPad. A training session has been conducted for them to learn its use and upload questions or download material. A special app, Uttar Pradesh Sarkar Ka Budget, has also been built. Besides on Android, the app is now available on iOS platform for iPads as well. “Yes, the budget will be completely paperless. Our staff will be there to help the legislators if they face any problem,” said principal secretary (parliamentary affairs) JP Singh.

“The budget can also be downloaded from the state assembly’s website or the state government’s budget website,” said a senior officer.

As this would be the last fullfledged budget before the state goes into poll mode for the 2022 assembly elections, chief minister Yogi Adityanath may make announcements for different sections of the society.

The state government is likely to make a large chunk of allocations for infrastructure projects like expressways, including the Ganga Expressway, and metro projects. It will also have to make allocations for projects/schemes already announced.

“Announcements in the budget are political compulsions for any government. The state government should, however, follow the Union government and come out with a pre-budget economic survey and outcome budget to make the people aware of the impact of the budget on the state’s economy,” said Yashvir Tyagi, former professor at the department of economics, Lucknow University.

The state government may face major challenges on mobilizing resources to fund the populist announcements in view of the Covid-19 impact on the state economy. The state government’s revenue in the first few months of 2020-21 declined considerably. It announced an increase in VAT (Value Added Tax) on petrol and diesel and excise duty to mobilise funds for various development projects.

Under such a situation, all eyes will be set on the size of the state budget. The state government had presented its largestever annual budget for 2020-21 of Rs 5,12,860.72 crore in 2020-21. This marked an increase of 6.9% against the previous year’s size.

Minister for finance Suresh Khanna has already hinted that the state government will go for an increase in the state budget’s size this year, too, despite challenges on the resource mobilisation front. The state government

may take the size of the budget close to Rs 5.25 lakh crore or Rs 5.50 lakh crore, if not more.

“Yes, the state government may increase the size of state budget. Revised estimates may, however, bring the same close to or less than the size of 2020-21,” said Tyagi.

He also said, “In my opinion, the budget should focus on socio-economic infrastructure and have provisions for the youths.”

The state government is likely to restore the Vidhayak Nidhi that was suspended for one year as a slew of measures undertaken to fight Covid-19.

Although minister for finance Suresh Khanna recently parried a question in this regard, he may make an announcement in his budget speech.