Uttarakhand: Schemes galore but no clear development road map

The Budget in the hill state has never been seen as a serious document

If you ask Uttarakhand Finance Minister Prakash Pant to highlight some of the significant announcements in the Budget that he presented in the state Assembly, he would quickly count more than a dozen new schemes mostly in the social sector.

But the fact is the Budget in the hill state is never seen as a serious document. After the inception of Uttarakhand, all the Budgets presented in the state Assembly have remained tax-free, with hardly any new announcements to spur growth.

The trend continued in 2017-18 when Pant presented his maiden Budget in the House. The Budget in the hill