The Uttar Pradesh government has made budgetary provision of over Rs 15,000 crore to give a jack to the infrastructure spanning energy, road and transport sectors during the current financial year.
These sectors are the main stumbling blocks for the industrial amelioration of UP, which are lagging behind other sectors in attracting any big investment.
The previous Mayawati government had also given high priority to the energy and highways sectors under the public private partnership (PPP) mode. The Akhilesh Yadav government has provisioned for Rs 8,225 crore for energy to augment power availability and general improvement in the sector.
While the power demand has touched 11,000 Megawatt (Mw) in the state, the supply (including state generation, import and overdraw) hovers around 9,500 Mw leaving a wide gap.
In the state budgetary proposals, tabled in the state assembly recently, Rs 3,429 crore would be incurred for power generation and transmission.
A provision of Rs 4,040 crore has been made for compensating revenue loss to UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) for providing power at concessional rates. UPPCL is also looking at cutting its losses by Rs 4,300 crore in the current financial year through higher revenue generation, checking power pilferage, deftness in purchase of power and judicious management of power demand. In fact, it has been incurring massive losses over the years to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore annually, including subsidy part of Rs 4,000 odd crore. The accumulated losses alone stand at around Rs 18,000 crore.
Besides, provisions of Rs 4,595 crore has been made for roads, Rs 1,330 crore for bridges and Rs 914 crore for link roads during 2012-13. A provision of Rs 225 crore has been made for construction of roads on PPP mode for UP State Highways Authority. Another Rs 1,854 crore has been kept for maintenance of over 1.77 lakh km of state highways and other road network. The previous regime had also undertaken up-gradation of these highways under the PPP mode.