The state’s budget for 2020-21, worth Rs 5,12,860.72 crore, was presented by the state’s finance minister on Tuesday. It is the state’s largest budget to date. The budget of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state administration in Yogi Adityanath is the fourth and exceeds the budget of the last year by Rs 33.159 crore. The fourth budget of the Government of Yogi included a provision for Rs 783 crore for the Prime Minister’s Minority Welfare Program for Public Growth, and for madrasa and ‘maktabs’ a provision for Rs 479 crore.

The madrasa board representatives praised the grant and said it would contribute to providing students with high quality education, particularly in modern subjects such as mathematics, English, Hindi, science and home science.

Lucknow has 131 madrasas licenced. According to information from the Commission, so far 62 of these madrasas have been covered by the structural reform programme sponsored by union as well as state governments.

The figures say that about 16,000 enrolled lakh student madrasas are registered in the State (558 of which are helped).

A scheme for the grant scheme was provided for students of minorities in a budget submitted last year with Rs 942 crore, while a scheme to modernise Arab-Persian madrasas with Rs 459 crore was made.

Similarly, Rs 180 crore has been set aside for the construction of a cultural centre in Varanasi, as well as Rs 50 crore for the promotion of the state’s tourism unit. In addition, the budget has set aside Rs 25 crore for water sports at Gorakhpur’s Ramgarh Lake, as well as Rs 200 crore for the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

Furthermore, the social protection department provided for Rs 1459 crore for old age/farmers pension schemes. In addition, Rs 1251 crore has been set aside for the National Old Age Pension Plan, Rs 500 crore for the National Family Benefit Scheme, Rs 250 crore for the Chief Minister’s Collective Scheme, and Rs 1375 crore for the backward children’s scholarship scheme.