Politics

Yogi Adityanath government replies to Rahul Gandhi and media allegation

July 16, 2017

Ever since the new Uttar Pradesh Government led by Yogi Adityanath came into power, all the anti-India forces have been having a heart burn. This was once again very evident when the media and Rahul Gandhi started taking jibes at the UP Government accusing them of reducing the education budget for the state.

The Government today held a press conference and disproved all the allegations laid forth by them. “Great move CM Yogi – next you can save more money by closing all the hospitals,” Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi had tweeted, quoting a news report which said that education funds were slashed by over 90% in UP’s recent budget for the financial year 2017-18.

Yogi Adityanath explained the budget in detail, category wise.

Govt official gives right replies

Replying to these allegations, a spokesperson for the UP Government said that the education budget had in fact been increased by over 25%. “The total budget for primary, secondary and higher education in the UP budget for 2017-18 is Rs 62,185.25 crore as compared to the previous budget of 2016-17 of Rs 49,607.93 crore, which is 25.4 per cent higher,” he said.

Yogi Adityanath explained the budget in detail, category wise.The budget for primary education is Rs 50,142 crore this time compared to Rs 38,066.06 crore in the preceding year, which is 31.7 per cent more. The budget for secondary education is 4.8 per cent higher than the previous year.

This year Rs 9,387.44 crore has been earmarked for secondary education, compared to Rs 8,956.86 crore last time. For higher education, the allocation this time is 2.7 per cent more than the previous year. For 2017-18, Rs 2,655.81 crore has been earmarked against Rs 2,585.01 crore in the preceding fiscal.

The report also said that the Government had completely stopped the earlier laptop distribution schemes set forth by the Akhilesh government. This is quite true and seems to be the right step too. A laptop costs around Rs 30,000 to 40,000 and in the same cost, 3-4 more poor children can be educated.

In fact, it is to be noted that the Government has in fact reduced unnecessary funding on luxuries like laptops and has chosen to focus on the necessity. The increased spending on expanding education facilities will mainly focus to draw more students to schools, in both primary and secondary schools and colleges.