Budget Goes Bigger, But Fund Utilisation Remains a Challenge

Depts utilised only about 55% of the allocated funds in the first three quarters

- Umesh Raghuvanshi

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh government may have increased the allocations for various sectors with the size of the annual budget also going up year after year, but it faces the greater challenge of spending the funds.

UP's annual budget of Rs 8,08,736.06 crore for 2025-2026 was presented in the state legislative assembly on Thursday, taking the budget size up by 9.8%. The annual budget of Rs 7.36 lakh crore in 2024-2025 also saw an increase of 6.7% (against the budget of 2023-2024). The government later presented two supplementary budgets with the first supplementary budget for Rs 12209.93 crore and the second one for Rs 17865.72 crore, thereby taking the size of total budget to Rs 7.66 lakh crore.