Yogi govt allots Rs 2,100 cr for police and fire dept revamp, forensics

UP Budget provides Rs 3 cr for curbing cybercrime against women, children; Rs 28 cr set aside for rape and acid attack victims

The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated a budget of more than Rs 200 crore for police modernisation and setting up of forensic investigation facilities in the state.

According to the UP Annual Budget 2020-21 proposals, the police modernisation scheme has been provided Rs 122 crore, apart from Rs 60 crore for the construction of forensic labs.

Besides, Rs 20 crore would be spent on the proposed UP Police Forensic University in Lucknow.

In fact, the budgetary allocation under the police and fire fighting heads, both operational and infrastructure, totals more than Rs 2,100 crore for the next financial year.

The Budget has allocated Rs 3 core for cybercrime prevention against women and children, while Rs 28 crore has been allocated for financial assistance under the Central Victim Compensation Fund scheme in the cases of acid attack, rape, human trafficking or murder.

Meanwhile, Rs 97 crore has been allocated under the Safe City Lucknow scheme, apart from Rs 650 crore and Rs 600 crore for construction of non-residential and residential buildings respectively in the state police department.

Rs 300 crore would be spent for the construction of residential and non-residential blocks in the newly created districts of the state. Besides, Rs 150 crore has been allocated for the construction of buildings of fire fighting stations.

At the same time, Rs 27 crore has been provided for disbursement as ex-gratia to the family members of police and fire fighting personnel, who either died or sustained grievous injuries during the discharge of their duty.

The UP Annual Budget 2020-21, tabled in the state assembly on February 18, is to the tune of Rs 5.12 trillion, which is almost 7 per cent higher than the current year’s Annual Budget 2019-20 of Rs 4.79 trillion.

In his 4th consecutive Budget, the Yogi Adityanath government has attempted to toe the path of fiscal discipline, and tamed fiscal deficit at 2.97 per cent, akin to current financial year, at Rs 53,195 crore – which is within the mandated 3% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act.

At the same time, the public debt is pegged at a manageable level of 28.8 per cent of the GSDP. The government has proposed new schemes of nearly Rs 11,000 crore.

Although the UP Annual Budget 2019-20 tabled on February 7, 2019, was to the tune of Rs 4.79 trillion, the total size of the state budget for the current financial year had burgeoned to Rs 4.96 trillion following the tabling of two supplementary budgets in the legislature on July 23 and December 17, 2019, of Rs 13,595 crore and Rs 4,210 crore respectively.

Under the budgetary expenses, Rs 3.95 trillion and Rs 1.18 trillion have been estimated under revenue and capital expenditure heads respectively.