The Economic Survey called agriculture the “sector of the future” and the FM echoed this sentiment in her budget speech, emphasizing garib, youth, annadata and nari. Despite this focus, key gaps remain. Firstly, there is a budget cut for agriculture ministry. Despite the rhetoric, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MOA) saw a ₹3,500...
The Union budget presented on Saturday saw a 9.8% increase in the allocation for the healthcare sector to ₹99,858.56 crore from ₹90,958.68 crore in the previous financial year but overall health allocation remained below 2% of the budget. The share of health in the FY26 budget increased marginally to 1.97% from 1.9% in FY25 and...
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has followed a stable trajectory in all her Union Budgets since 2019. This year’s budget speech, though, was unusual in not mentioning allocations for specific Infrastructure sectors. The unsaid implication being – execute and implement existing projects in large sectors like highways and railways. Of the allocation to Infrastructure of an...
