UP Budget: GSDP higher than national growth rate in 2021-22, says Finance minister Suresh Khanna

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], February 22 (ANI): Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna on Wednesday presented the state Budget, claiming that the state recorded a 16.8 per cent increase in Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), which is higher than the national growth rate in 2021-2022.
"The state's contribution to the country's GDP is more than 8 per cent. In 2021-2022, a growth of 16.8 per cent was registered in the state's Gross State Domestic Product, higher than the nartional growth rate last fiscal," Khanna said.
Khanna was presenting the second budget of the Yogi Adityanath government in its second term an the seventh overall since 2017, on Wednesday.
The ongoing Budget session of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly started on Monday.
The Finance minister further said the state's economy paints an encouraging picture even amid "global recession".
"In the era of global recession, the growth rate of the state is encouraging. Before 2017, the unemployment rate of the state was 14.4 per cent. Today, it has come down to about 4.2 per cent," the Finance minister said.
He added that the increase in the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for the financial year 2023-2024 has been estimated at 19 per cent.
Khanna said further more than Rs 51,639.68 crore has been transferred directly to the bank accounts of farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in the year 2022-2023, under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, the Centre's flagship income support scheme for farmers.
Invoking the recent Global Investors Summit, which was attended by over 25,000 investors from across the globe, Khanna said, "I am happy to inform you that more than 19,000 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) worth about Rs 33.50 lakh crore were signed during the summit." (ANI)