LUCKNOW: With the beginning of the new fiscal on April 1, UP will also enter into the election year — the assembly elections are due early next year. The UP govt thus has high hopes from the Union Budget which will be tabled by Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday. The state has expectations for various sectors — from infrastructure to health etc. The UP govt during the pre-budget meeting of the states held recently had placed its demand before the Union govt. Among them was setting up of an AIIMS in the West UP region which lacks any such super speciality hospital, the UP finance minister Suresh Khanna said. UP also demanded payment of dues under the piped water to all houses in the Namami Gange scheme, Khanan said and added that Rs 33,000 crore is due from the Centre under the scheme.In another significant demand, govt asked the Centre to transfer all the districts attached to Allahabad high court from the West UP region to Lucknow bench. The demand has been raised as per the request from the districts of the West UP region, said Khanna. UP requested the central govt to raise the urbanisation fund for the state, Khanna said and added that UP urbanisation graph is based on the 2011 census when the urbanisation of the state was only 22%.However, with time the number of local bodies in the state has risen to over 740 with urbanisation graph now reaching over 27%, Khanna said and added that the demand for urbanisation funds as per current situation has been made. If heeded to, the urbanisation fund for various infrastructure development work will also increase, experts said. Among other major demands, the UP govt plans to build another expressway connecting north and south parts of the state with east and west already connected by the Ganga expressway. Khanna confirmed that the funds for the same have been sought from the Centre. While the north region of the state includes districts like Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, the southern region includes districts like Sonebhadra and a few districts from Bundelkhand region. Govt has also placed demands for various sectors, Khanna said.
