The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday earmarked ₹100 crore for infrastructure-building in Ayodhya besides offering a bouquet of welfare benefits to brides and women students in its last full budget before next year’s Assembly elections.

The projects for Ayodhya include temple renovations, road widening and drinking water supply.

The Yogi Adityanath government had set aside ₹400 crore in last year’s budget to develop the pilgrimage centres of Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Mathura and Naimisharanya (Sitapur) but local people say nothing concrete was done.

"A few roads were built between the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the town’s airport and railway station in 2024-25, but nothing was done in 2025-26," said Sumit Shukla, an Ayodhya shopkeeper who sells beads and other puja accessories.

"The lanes around the temple are still in poor condition; there’s no activity to suggest the government will do anything there. Some of the roads built in 2024-25 were damaged last year; perhaps they will be repaired now.”

The budget offers a scooty to "meritorious" girl students who do well in their intermediate (Plus-II) exams, and doubles from ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh the one-time marriage allowance for poor women.

It promises a hostel for working women in every district and a sports university in every division.

While the government had three years ago claimed that every village had drinking water supply and the Ganga had been cleaned completely, the latest budget earmarks a combined ₹22,676 crore for these two programmes.

Presenting the budget in the Assembly, finance minister Suresh Khanna said: “We are focused on keeping the Ganga clean and are developing 74 water treatment projects to provide clean drinking water to residents of rural areas."

He said the total volume of the budget was ₹9,12,696 crore, a 12 per cent rise from last year.

Adityanath bragged that he had become the first Uttar Pradesh chief minister to present a 10th consecutive budget and told reporters the state had attracted investments worth ₹50 lakh crore during his tenure.

“The new budget has earmarked ₹43,565 crore for new projects,” he said.

State Congress president Ajai Rai said the “several lakh crores” approved in the 2025-26 budget had led to little action on the ground. “We want them to bring out a white paper on the previous expenditures. The budget has turned out to be a means of financial embezzlement,” he said.