Finance minister UK Prem Chand Aggrawal presents 2023-24 budget of Rs 77,407.08 crores with maximum allocation to education followed by health sector !

The budget of 2023-24 presented in the Uttarakhand Assembly in Gairsain today by the finance minister Prem Chand Aggarwal has been termed as a progressive and employment oriented budget guaranteeing a bright Uttarakhand till 2025.

Presenting the Rs.77, 407.08 crore on Wednesday – highly enthusiastic finance minister in shining Dhoti and greeting the lawmakers in Garhwali dialect Prem Chand Aggrawal allocated maximum budget of Rs. 10,495.55 crores on education sector followed by Rs. 4.217.87 crores in health and Rs. 3,343 crores in civic bodies with PWD getting merely Rs. 2,791.83 crores.

In his not so impressive speech while laying down the budget – the finance minister of Uttarakhand claimed that the budget of 2023-24 is an inclusive budget that guarantees – reaching the last man on the street, farmers, youth and women giving maximum priority to the hapless and deprived sections of the society sounding a usual hypocritical statement as politicians make.

The budget session being held in the summer season at Gairsain assembly known as the summer capital of the state though not officially declared witnessed lots of protest in assembly precincts by opposition party members n activists including some MLAs coming into the well of the house damaging microphones smashing them on tables and throwing documents tearing them – making mockery of assembly proceedings with speaker Ritu Khanduri on the chair.

While addressing the lawmakers during the budget session finance minister Prem Chand Aggrawal said making better health related facilities for the patients and people of the state is the primary and foremost important priority of his government and as such this budget has allocated Rs 400 crores becoming the first state in the country where each n every family will enjoy the facility of cashless or free of cost treatment under “ATAL AYUSHMAN YOJNA”.

Apart from allocations on education, health, PWD etc – the social welfare, women and child welfare sector got the minimum allocation of Rs. 2,850 crores which caters to the pensions of widows, old aged persons, handicapped n poor sections including Anganbadies and women empowerment etc.

If we talk of the Agriculture sector of Uttarakhand which comprises of 73% land used for agriculture and covered with forests a meagre allocation of Rs. 1, 251 crores has been made out of which Rs. 20 crores have been earmarked for the promotion of local produce and Rs. 15 crores for Uttarakhand’s millet mission .

In addition to this Rs. 1000 crores have been allocated for coping with natural disasters and land subsidence including cracks in houses affecting hundreds of families giving them adequate relief and rehabilitation as is the situation in Joshimath, Garhwal.

As far as the electricity department of Uttarakhand is concerned, considered to be a core sector – Rs. 1,251 have been allocated and Rs 500 crores separately reserved for the Lakhwar project.

Similarly Rs 1300 crores have also been allocated for Infrastructural development and renovation of various government departments of Uttarakhand.

This year’s budget has 18.05% increase with regard to the total budget expenditure and a surge of 21.16% in capital expenditure if compared to the last year budget.

The finance minister seems to be extremely optimistic claiming the budget to be very positive making Uttarakhand a progressively developing state in 2025 promoting industrialisation, expanding greenary and green cover, boosting infrastructural development and enhancing health facilities including making the himalayan state a topmost educational hub which all the CMs of successive governments have been making for the last 22 years but on no avail.

The budget talks nothing or very little about employment opportunities to the youths and women empowerment in particular.

Meanwhile Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami termed the budget as all round developmental budget made on the directions n guidance of capable leadership of prime minister Narendra Modi which will fulfil the people’s expectations. The 2023-24 budget is “all touching”, tweeted Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Former chief minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat has written a detailed post criticizing the Budget 2023-24 terming it as not having come true to people’s expectation as well as central leadership having failed in giving enough and adequate knowledge or direction to the state government. Rawat tweeted in Hindi annexing his detailed post as below in Hindi: The Pushkar Singh Dhami government presented budget in assembly resulted in the Mekanzi global failing in delivering enough knowledge or direction to the state government.

Rawat’s detailed FB post is self explanatory as below. He wrote in Hindi : The Budget that has been presented by Pushkar Singh Dhami government in Vidhan Sabha is merely a, showcasing of the central government’s schemes which can be termed as Window Socket, You are repeating the same. Everyone knows the very fact that in the context of centrally governed schemes / projects including the state budget the state record is extremely apathetic amd hopeless. Rawat writes that not even 30% budget of the central schemes is spent which unambiguously means that a major part of the budget of centrally sponsored schemes/ projects remains idke or unused. Therefore there is no point in expecting from this government that they will rightly use centrally sanctioned budget on its schemes leading to an understanding that the remaining budget of these centrally sanctioned schemes that has been unused and placed for economic analysis in the assembly then the state budget amount should have been Rs. 90000 crores instead off 72000 crores. This clearly means that the Uttarakhand BJP government has deliberately released a budget of mere 72000 crores than an over ambitious big budget thus not allowing the various new developmental projects to take shape and get fulfilled. There has been a very little allocation on various self employment schemes as well as providing relief to Sugarcane farmers. Not only this but about 15 big schemes on which budget was allocated last year habe not been completed wrote Harish Rawat. He also wrote that the vibrant village developmental projects that were being propagated since long for border villages have not been commenced till date giving an impression about rhetoric announcements by the saffron party governments at the centre and state. Terming the budget as anti people not coming true to their expectation Harish Rawat said that while nothing has been done on employment and farmers front no attempt has been made to generate new sources of income despite the hard fact that the state’s fiscal deficit has equalled the amount of this year’s annual budget.