M A I N   N E W S

No fresh taxes in UP budget

Lucknow, February 19
With many sops and no fresh taxes, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s second populist budget banks on consolidating the party’s constituency of youth, Muslims and farmers.

The 2013-14 budget estimates tabled by the CM today has a fiscal deficit to the tune of Rs 23,913.29 crore which is 2.94 per cent of the gross state domestic product. It is a 10 per cent rise from the last year’s budget size of Rs 2,00,110.61 crore.

Akhilesh mentioned during his budget speech and later during the interaction with the media that his government’s priority is youth, farmers, Muslims, students, rickshaw-pullers and the girl child. One of the populist measures is providing two saris to above-18 woman of BPL families and a blanket to senior citizens of such families, for which budgetary allocation of Rs 600 crore has been set aside. — TNS