Rs.22,000 crore supplementary budget to be presented in UP

The Uttar Pradesh government will present a Rs.22,000 crore supplementary budget in the assembly today.

This is the biggest supplementary budget to be presented by any state government and comes amid allegations by opposition parties that many important departments in the Samajwadi Party (SP) government have failed to spend the budgetary allocations in the current financial year.

The monsoon session had begun last week but had been adjourned after paying homage to late president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. As the session resumes today, both treasury and opposition benches are reconciled to a face off as the opposition parties are set to raise issues like corruption, poor law and order and problems of farmers.

Even insiders in the ruling party admit that floor management was a "worrying prospect".The main opposition — Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will raise the issue of atrocities on Dalit, communal clashes and poor law and order and the leader of opposition Swamy Prasad Maurya has made it clear that the party will launch an "all out offensive" on the Akhilesh Yadav government.

The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) has announced an agitation against the state government and will gherao the Vidhan Sabha later in the day.

The party's national general secretary Madhusudan Mistry, Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, Sanjay Singh, P.L. Punia and all state leaders will be participating in the protest march which will aise 11-point charter.

Leader of the BJP legislature party Suresh Khanna said the Akhilesh Yadav government will have to explain the need for such a huge supplementary budget, specially since the initial budgetary allocation of the current fiscal had not been spent.

(IANS)