UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 7 of 150

Correct — A, Both 1 and 2. The Uttar Pradesh Budget for 2020-21 was presented in the Vidhan Sabha on 18 February 2020 by Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna, in the Yogi Adityanath government's term, and its total size was Rs 5,12,860.72 crore — the largest State budget Uttar Pradesh had presented up to that point. That confirms statement 1. The budget also carried a block of newly announced schemes worth Rs 10,967.87 crore, which confirms statement 2. Independent analysis of the same budget bears out the headline figure: total expenditure for 2020-21 was targeted at about Rs 5,12,861 crore, roughly 13.5 per cent higher than the revised estimate for 2019-20. Both statements are therefore true and the key marks (a). Watch the code in this paper: in UPPSC 2022 Paper-I's two-statement items (a) is 'Both 1 and 2', (b) is 'Only 1', (c) is 'Neither 1 nor 2' and (d) is 'Only 2' — 'Only 1' sits at (b), not at (a).

• (b)Only 1 — This accepts the total of Rs 5,12,860.72 crore but rejects the new-schemes figure. The provision for newly announced schemes in the 2020-21 UP budget was Rs 10,967.87 crore, exactly as statement 2 puts it, so statement 2 cannot be dropped.
• (c)Neither 1 nor 2 — Both figures come from the same budget documents and both are stated correctly in the question, so rejecting both is wrong.
• (d)Only 2 — This keeps the new-schemes provision but denies the total. Rs 5,12,860.72 crore is the size of the 2020-21 UP budget as presented on 18 February 2020, so statement 1 stands.

A State budget is the annual financial statement laid before the State legislature under Article 202 of the Constitution. Its 'size' is the total budgeted expenditure for the year, revenue and capital together. Within that total, State governments in Uttar Pradesh conventionally announce a separate figure for schemes launched for the first time in that budget — the 'new schemes' provision — which is the number statement 2 is quoting. Because the figures are read out in the House and printed to the paisa in the budget speech, UPPSC treats them as exact-recall material rather than approximations.

Two-statement questions on a State budget are almost always testing whether you have the headline number and its companion sub-number in the right order of magnitude, and the paper helps by printing both to the paisa. Anchor the 2020-21 UP budget at roughly Rs 5.13 lakh crore and remember that the very next year's budget, for 2021-22, was about Rs 5,50,270 crore — the two are close enough that a candidate who has learned only one figure may misassign it. The new-schemes provision, at about Rs 11,000 crore, is roughly two per cent of the total, which is the sanity check worth carrying: if a figure offered for new schemes were of the same order as the whole budget, it would be wrong on the face of it. Quote the precise figures once when you write about them, since that is how the question is set.

• The Uttar Pradesh Budget for 2020-21 was of Rs 5,12,860.72 crore and was presented in the Vidhan Sabha on 18 February 2020.
• It was presented by Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna in the Yogi Adityanath government, and was the largest budget Uttar Pradesh had presented to that date.
• Newly announced schemes in that budget accounted for Rs 10,967.87 crore.
• Independent budget analysis put total 2020-21 expenditure at about Rs 5,12,861 crore, roughly 13.5 per cent above the revised estimate for 2019-20.
• The following year's Uttar Pradesh budget, for 2021-22, was of about Rs 5,50,270 crore — the figure most easily confused with this one.

• Confusing the 2020-21 total (about Rs 5.13 lakh crore) with the 2021-22 total (about Rs 5.50 lakh crore); the two are close and are asked in successive papers.
• Confusing the State budget with the Union Budget of the same year — UPPSC asks both, often in adjacent questions.
• Misreading this paper's code — here 'Only 1' is at (b), not at (a).

UPPSC asks the Uttar Pradesh budget every cycle: the total size to the paisa, the new-schemes provision, or the name of a scheme first announced in a particular budget — usually in a two-statement or select-the-schemes format.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Uttar Pradesh Budget for the financial year 2020-21 was presented in the State Legislative Assembly by which Finance Minister?

  • (a)Rajesh Agarwal
  • (b)Suresh Kumar Khanna
  • (c)Sidharth Nath Singh
  • (d)Ashutosh Tandon

  Answer(b) Suresh Kumar Khanna — he presented the Rs 5,12,860.72 crore budget on 18 February 2020.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution is the annual financial statement of a State laid before its legislature?

  • (a)Article 112
  • (b)Article 202
  • (c)Article 266
  • (d)Article 280

  Answer(b) Article 202 — Article 112 is the corresponding provision for the Union budget.