As per Uttarakhand Budget 2025-26, the amount allocated for Char Dham Road network improvement is ______.
- (a)₹ 20 Crores
- (b)₹ 10 Crores
- (c)₹ 15 Crores
- (d)₹ 25 Crores
Correct — B, ₹ 10 Crores.
Uttarakhand's Budget for 2025-26, presented by Finance Minister Premchand Aggarwal on 20 February 2025, provides ₹ 10 Crores for improvement of the Char Dham road network.
The same tourism list carries ₹100 crore for Tehri Lake development and ₹10 crore for new tourist destinations, so each amount has to be tied to its own named line.
Carry away the scale, not just the name: the 2025-26 state budget provides ₹10 crore for Char Dham road network improvement, while the Centre's Char Dham Pariyojana highway work is a separate and far larger project.
- (a)₹ 20 Crores — ₹ 20 Crores is the amount shown in the same tourism list for the Vibrant Village Scheme, a border-village development programme.
Shifting it onto the Char Dham road line doubles what is actually provided there. That head reads ₹10 crore.
- (c)₹ 15 Crores — ₹ 15 Crores is the midpoint between the ₹10 crore this head actually carries and the ₹20 crore of the neighbouring Vibrant Village line.
The budget is specific here: improvement of the Char Dham road network is provided ₹10 crore. A five-crore step is settled by recall, not by reasoning.
- (d)₹ 25 Crores — ₹ 25 Crores is the amount shown in the same tourism list for the Manaskhand scheme, the state's temple-circuit programme for the Kumaon region.
Manaskhand covers Kumaon's temples while the Char Dham shrines lie in Garhwal — two pilgrimage heads in one budget, carrying different amounts. The Char Dham road line reads ₹10 crore.
A state budget is a list of named heads, each carrying a specific amount. A question of this shape tests the pairing of head to amount, not any judgement about whether the sum is adequate.
Two habits sharpen that recall. An amount belongs to a named line rather than to a theme — the words 'Char Dham' attach to several different projects and budgets, so the full line has to be read.
Amounts are also year-stamped. A figure is true of one financial year's budget and carries no information about the next one.
Char Dham pilgrimage traffic drives much of Uttarakhand's tourism economy, and road access to Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath shapes how much of it the state can handle.
That access is funded from two very different places. The Centre's Char Dham Pariyojana is an all-weather national-highway project running to several thousand crore; the state budget line asked about here is a much smaller improvement provision.
The 2025-26 budget gives the wider frame around it — a total of ₹1,01,175.33 crore, a projected revenue surplus, and a fiscal deficit held inside 3% of GSDP.
- The Uttarakhand Budget 2025-26 was presented by Finance Minister Premchand Aggarwal on 20 February 2025.
- Its total size is ₹1,01,175.33 crore — revenue expenditure of ₹59,954.65 crore plus capital-account expenditure of ₹41,220.68 crore, which includes debt repayment.
- ₹10 crore is provided for improvement of the Char Dham road network.
- ₹100 crore is provided for development of Tehri Lake, the largest of the tourism lines listed here.
- The same list carries ₹25 crore for the Manaskhand scheme, ₹20 crore for the Vibrant Village Scheme — a border-village programme — and ₹10 crore for new tourist destinations.
- PRS records a revenue surplus of ₹2,586 crore (0.6% of GSDP) and a fiscal deficit of ₹12,605 crore (2.9% of GSDP) for 2025-26.
- PRS's analysis of the budget records targets of 220 km of new road construction, 1,500 km of road renovation and 1,000 km of reconstruction in 2025-26. (The budget speech's own wording for the renovation figure has been read as 1,550 km, so treat the exact digit as the source-dependent one.)
- Larger connectivity and water heads in the same budget include ₹1,065 crore for PMGSY and ₹1,843 crore for the Jal Jeevan Mission — both an order of magnitude above the Char Dham road provision.
- The Char Dham Pariyojana, an all-weather national-highway project of the Union government, is distinct from this state budget provision.
The question asks for the highlighted row. The ₹20 crore and ₹25 crore choices are amounts carried by other lines in the same list.
- The words 'Char Dham' attach both to a small state improvement provision and to the Centre's all-weather highway project; matching on the name alone puts the answer out by orders of magnitude.
- ₹10 crore appears against two separate lines here — Char Dham road improvement and new tourist destinations — so an amount remembered without its head can be pinned to the wrong item.
- The options step by ₹5 crore, a gap no reasoning can close; the figure has to be recalled as printed rather than estimated from the size of the project.
- A budget figure belongs to its financial year, so a 2024-25 or 2026-27 number will not answer a stem that says 2025-26.
- The total announced budget (₹1,01,175.33 crore) and the expenditure figure excluding debt repayment (₹75,170 crore) are different quantities, and a stem naming one is not satisfied by the other.
The pairing is asked directly, as a blank in a sentence naming one budget head, so the amount itself is what is being tested.
It also appears as a ranking — which head received the largest allocation in a given year's state budget — which is the form the Uttarakhand Budget 2016-17 item took.
A harder version keeps the amount right but moves the year, or swaps the state budget for the Union budget, so the qualifier in the stem carries the question.
UKPSC_2016_PRE_PaperI_Q612016Same source document and same state — an item read straight off the Uttarakhand state budget, with roads among the choices. What differs is the operation asked for: 2016-17 wanted the head with the highest allocation, a ranking across sectors, while 2025 wants the exact rupee figure printed against one named line.
MPPSC_2025_PRE_PaperI_Q392025Same idea of recalling a state budget allocation tied to a stated year. It differs in state, in unit and in year: Madhya Pradesh's share of total expenditure going to education in 2023-24 is a percentage of the whole budget, whereas this asks a rupee amount for a single project head in 2025-26.
CDS_GK_2025_II_Q722025Both are budget-document recall from the same season. The difference is the level and the object: the CDS item takes a policy change from the Union Budget 2025 — the FDI cap raised to 100 per cent for insurance — while this one takes a spending figure from a state budget.
- practice — not a real PYQ
What is the total announced size (total expenditure including debt repayment) of the Uttarakhand Budget for 2025-26?
- (a)₹ 59,954.65 crore
- (b)₹ 75,170 crore
- (c)₹ 1,01,175.33 crore
- (d)₹ 41,220.68 crore
Answerc — ₹1,01,175.33 crore is the budget's announced total. (a) ₹59,954.65 crore is its revenue expenditure and (d) ₹41,220.68 crore its capital-account expenditure, which includes debt repayment; the two are components that add up to the total, not the total itself.(b) ₹75,170 crore is total expenditure excluding debt repayment, the figure PRS uses for year-on-year comparison.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Uttarakhand Budget 2025-26, ₹100 crore has been provided for which of the following?
- (a)Improvement of the Char Dham road network
- (b)Development of Tehri Lake
- (c)Vibrant Village Scheme
- (d)Manaskhand scheme
Answerb — Tehri Lake development carries ₹100 crore, the largest of the tourism lines listed here. (a) Char Dham road network improvement is provided ₹10 crore, (c) the Vibrant Village Scheme ₹20 crore and (d) the Manaskhand scheme ₹25 crore, so none of them matches ₹100 crore. - practice — not a real PYQ
The Char Dham Pariyojana, the all-weather road project connecting Uttarakhand's four shrines, is a project of which Union ministry?
- (a)Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
- (b)Ministry of Tourism
- (c)Ministry of Culture
- (d)Ministry of Jal Shakti
Answera — it is a national-highway project taken up by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. (b) Tourism funds pilgrimage and destination circuits rather than national highways, (c) Culture deals with heritage and monuments, and (d) Jal Shakti handles water resources and drinking water, so none of them owns a highway project.