Focus on cattle, Ayodhya, girls in Uttar Pradesh budget

NEW DELHI: Cows, the town of Ayodhya and girls in Uttar Pradesh got a bounty from the Yogi Adityanath government in the annual state budget on Thursday.

The UP government enmarked over Rs 600 crore on cattle welfare and the construction and maintenance of gaushalas in the coming financial year, amid anger among farmers over the stray cattle problem. A special cess has been imposed on liquor sales in the state. Of the total cess collected, Rs 165 crore will be used for maintenance of stray cattle in the state.

Ayodhya got nearly Rs 300 crore for the construction of an airport and tourism-related projects.


As much as Rs 207 crore was further provided for the expansion and beautification of the road from the Ganga bank to Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, a pet project of BJP.

The UP government also announced a new scheme to raise the health and educational standards of girls. Kanya Sumangala Yojna was allotted Rs 1,200 crore in the budget. A provision of Rs 2,579 crore was also made under the Old Age and Farmers' Pension Scheme running in UP.

Around Rs 459 crore was proposed for modernisation of Arabi-Farsi Madarsas in the state. The total budget was pegged at Rs 4.79 lakh crore, which was 12% higher than the last budget. Fiscal deficit of Rs 46,910.62 crore is estimated in the financial year 2019-20, which is 2.97% of the estimated Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for the year 2019-20, the budget document said.