UP has no funds for books but allocates Rs 1100 cr for temples

The new academic session has started and children have started going to schools, but the government is yet to give them books because they do not have sufficient funds to float a tender.

A government official said that due to delay in the process of finalising tenders and less number of tenders, the publisher could not publish the books on time. However, the government is trying its best to provide books to the students.

A teacher in the state-run school said: "We have not received new books from the government. Hence, we have collected the books from the children of the previous session."

The state government may not have funds for the books of school children, but the Department of Religious Affairs has proposed a whopping Rs 1100 crore budget for the departmental works in the financial year 2022-23, against 32.52 crores spent in 2017-18 and Rs 614.88 crore in 2021-22.

The statement issued by the government says that in the next 100 days, the Government proposes to work on the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Project. The department also plans to operate the Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan in Ghaziabad and work on the construction of the second phase of the Vedic Science Centre at the cost of Rs 934.46 lakh.

There would be a splurge of funds in Yogi government 2.0 for building the infrastructure of areas around Hindu temples or renovation of Hindu shrines. The government has allocated Rs 63.46 crore for the construction of the main roads of Ayodhya including Bhakti Path and Ramjanm Bhoomi Path (a four-lane 7-kilometre road from Sahadat Ganj to Sugreev Fort Road) at the cost of Rs 35.07 crore. It will also be carrying out the widening and strengthening of Ram Path (Sahadatganj Naya Ghat Road) at the cost of Rs 1080 crore.

*It is noteworthy that the Yogi Government granted Rs one lakh per pilgrim to Mansarovar in 2017 and Rs 20,000 per pilgrim to Sindhu Darshan. As many as 1225 pilgrims benefitted from the Government’s scheme for the Mansarovar visit in 2021-22 whereas 274 pilgrims for Sindhu Darshan were benefited by the government scheme.

The Government also built Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan in Ghaziabad at the cost of Rs 118 crore and set up Vedic Science Centre in Varanasi.

Besides, the Uttar Pradesh Government is set to develop an Integrated Temple Information System online consisting of descriptions, details and history of all the temples of the state as well as their route maps for tourists’ convenience.

The Department of Religious Affairs has already communicated to the Managing Director of the UP Electronics Corporation regarding sanctioning of Rs 1 crore for the purpose, which would be released by the Finance Department soon. The corporation is likely to develop the software and upload the above-mentioned details about the temples in the next six months, a press release said.