Rural infra push, DA hike in last state budget before polls
Times of India | 13 February 2025
12 Kolkata: A push for rural infrastructure and a DA hike for state govt employees, along with adequate outlays for signature social welfare schemes, were the cornerstones of the Mamata Banerjee govt's last full budget before the 2026 state assembly polls.
Minister of state for finance, Chandrima Bhattacharya, on Wednesday presented a Rs 3.89 lakh crore budget with a marginal deficit of Rs 0.1 crore.
A significant portion of the allocations were reserved for Bengal govt's signature social schemes. The CM later said that almost 50% of the budget allocation was women-centric.
Anti-Centre rhetoric was woven throughout Bhattacharya's budget speech. Banerjee's attack during a post-budget presser — on Centre's "anti-Bengal policies" — was sharper. "The Centre makes tall promises before elections, but the promises are not delivered after polls are over," she said. "We, on the other hand, promise what our funds permit. We source it from our own revenue collection. We don't get our share of GST. Centre has stopped funding 100 days' work, rural housing and rural road projects in the state. We have tried to provide for these schemes ourselves," she added.
The budget set a target of tax revenue of Rs 1,12,543 crore for 2025-2026, a little over a 12% jump over the 2024-2025 figure of Rs 99,863 crore. According to the budget, the GSDP of the state has exceeded the Rs 18 lakh crore mark. The deficit for the next fiscal was targeted at 3.6%, down from the revised estimate of 4% for the current fiscal. The estimate for 2024-25 was 3.6%.
In her speech, Bhattacharya said the GSDP of the state increased by 6.8% in 2024-2025, which was higher than the national growth rate of 6.3%. "All three sectors — agriculture, industry and service — in Bengal's economy have contributed significantly and exhibited higher annual growth than national figures," she claimed, adding, "The industry sector registered growth of 7.3%, substantially higher than the national figure of 6.2%."
The budget was also packed with substantial allotments in rural and social infrastructure schemes, such as a bridge in Gangasagar, the Ghatal Master Plan, Banglar Bari, rural road networks, river-linking and Sufal Bangla. For state govt employees, a 4% DA hike was also announced. "We have so far released DA up to 14% on revised basic pay," Bhattacharya said. "To reduce the burden of inflation on govt and semi-govt employees, teaching and non-teaching staff and pensioners, our govt has decided to release another instalment of DA of 4% with effect from April , raising the total rate of DA to 18%," Bhattacharya said.
The state has also earmarked Rs 14,000 crore for the Banglar Bari scheme. The speech mentioned that the first instalment of Rs 7,200 crore had been released, and that the second tranche would be released by June. For Pathashree, the rural road network scheme, Rs 1,500 crore was allocated. The budget also proposed Rs 500 crore for the Gangasagar Setu, a 4.7km bridge that would link Sagar island with the mainland.
Bhattacharya's speech also introduced a Nadi Bandhan (river-linking) scheme, for which Rs 200 crore was allocated, apart from setting aside Rs 500 crore for the Ghatal Master Plan.
Banerjee also said that each child in India was born with a debt of Rs 1.1 lakh, claiming that the figure was much less in the state. "The total debt of India is around 56% of its GDP. When we came to power, we were burdened by around Rs 2 lakh crore. In Bengal, we have targeted to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.6% when Centre was unable to bring it below 4.4%. We spent Rs 80,000 crore this fiscal to pay our debt. That amount could have been used for welfare schemes," she said.
Principal chief adviser to the CM, Amit Mitra, said the per capita debt of Bengal was half of the country's figure. "Our GSDP-to-debt ratio is 37.9%, compared with 56% nationally," he said.
Banerjee also commented on renaming central schemes, saying, "We are allocating 40% finds and looking after maintenance. Each state has a different name for centrally sponsored schemes. We cannot follow project names used in Tamil Nadu. Why do you have to object if any state renames it in their language? Why should Delhi impose their names on our projects?"
(With inputs from Krishnendu Bandopadhyay and Debasish Konar)