LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh finance minister Suresh Khanna on Thursday presented a revenue surplus budget with a major push for infrastructure development to re-establish Uttar Pradesh’s position as an ‘expressway pradesh’. The Rs 8.08 lakh crore budget is 9.8% bigger than the previous one.
The highest outlay of Rs 1.06 lakh crore has gone to the education sector, followed by Rs 61,070 crore to energy.
UP CM Yogi Adityanath said the 2025-26 budget – which is his govt’s eighth and Khanna’s sixth – would bolster Sanatan culture and lay the roadmap for UP’s development for the next 25 years. “It defines PM Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘vanchiton ki variyata’ (Priority to those who have been left out of the race of development),” he said .
One of the highlights of the budget was the provision for the construction of four new expressways, which, once completed, would cover most parts of the state.
As per the proposals, a greenfield expressway will connect Jewar Airport to Ganga Expressway via Bulandshahr Link Expressway; Ganga Expressway would be expanded from Meerut to Haridwar and Purvanchal Expressway would connect with the proposed Vindhya Expressway. Besides, the Vindhya Expressway would connect Ganga Expressway from Prayagraj to Mirzapur, Varanasi, Chandauli to Sonbhadra, and there would be Bundelkhand-Rewa (NH-30) Link Expressway.
