CM: People-friendly fiscal plan despite deprivation by Centre
Times of India | 6 February 2026
Kolkata: Dubbing the Union budget as "visionless, missionless and actionless" that "derailed" the economy, CM Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said Bengal's vote-on-account budget was "focused on development of the people". Bengal gave a people-friendly budget "despite the deprivation from the central govt", she said, adding, "We are fighting because people have faith in us."
Speaking to reporters after the budget, she said: "We say what we can do. We don't make fake promises when elections are impending. Whatever we said before polls, we implemented and executed to the best of our capacity. The beneficiaries of Lakshmir Bhandar will get the additional amount of Rs 500 from Feb itself."
Rubbishing BJP's claims, Banerjee stressed that Bengal's unemployment was low. "Unemployment reduced by 45.6%, as per GoI's report. We pulled 1 crore 72 lakh people out of poverty. It's a big part of development," she said.
"We had 94 schemes before today. Today, 5-6 new schemes were added. I think we crossed 100 in terms of social schemes. The Karmashree scheme was renamed Mahatma-Shree the day the Centre removed Mahatma Gandhi's name from the 100-day work scheme. Previously, Karmashree provided work for 75 days. Now, it is 100 days in the budget," the CM said.
Dismissing overspending claims, Banerjee added: "We maintained financial discipline by abiding by the FRBM system. Previously, it wasn't the case, leading to an increase in the burden. Repaying a loan takes a long time since the interest keeps growing. It is a matter of pride that despite repaying a huge loan, a commendable budget provision was kept before the House."
The CM's chief economic adviser, Amit Mitra, said: "Budget allocation made a new record. The size of the budget is more than Rs 4 lakh crore. It was Rs 84,803 crore in 2010-11. A jump of 5 times took place. Our own taxes were Rs 21,129 crore in 2010-11. Today, it is Rs 1,18,669 crore as per the budget estimate projection. We increased our own taxes by almost 6 times."
"We reduced the revenue deficit significantly. When CM Banerjee came to office, it was 3.7%. Today, our target is 1%. Our destination is towards 0%. We are proceeding step by step. The fiscal deficit was 4.2%. We are aiming to achieve 2.91% as per the budget estimate. That's nearly a 32% decrease. Both fiscal deficit and revenue deficit are under control," he added.
On debt claims, Mitra said: "Debt stock was more than 40%. Despite the fact that the Union govt withheld funds worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore, we brought it down systematically to 37.98%. The quality of the debt is very important. In 2010-11, much of the revenue deficit was spent not on capital expenditure and social infrastructure. Today, over 45% of the debt goes into asset creation."