Full Budget likely after Parliament elections
SRINAGAR, FEB 03: Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present the Vote on Account (VoA) for Jammu and Kashmir on February 5, Sunday.
Official sources indicate that the new government will present a full budget for J&K in its first session of Parliament after the general elections in 2024.
For the current financial year 2023-24, J&K’s budget was Rs 1.18 lakh crore. FM Sitharaman had presented the interim budget on February 1.
Given that Jammu and Kashmir has been without a Legislature for the last five and a half years, the Vote-on-Account, expected to be taken next week, will address the financial concerns of the Union Territory. The last session of the 17th Lok Sabha is set to conclude on February 9, and the Model Code of Conduct is likely to be imposed in the first week of March with the announcement of parliamentary polls scheduled for April-May.
Officials have conveyed that the Jammu and Kashmir administration has been informed about the presentation of the Vote-on-Account during the short budget session in early February, covering six months.
The full budget, as per officials, will be presented in June-July in the first session of the Parliament of the next government, alongside the national budget. However, there is expected to be no financial problem in Jammu and Kashmir as the Vote-on-Account will address the financial concerns of the Union Territory.
For the Union Territory of Ladakh, approval for grants will be sought from the Parliament. The Jammu and Kashmir administration has conducted budget meetings with all departments to ascertain their requirements for presentation to the Union Finance Ministry, with several meetings already held between the UT and Finance Ministry officials.
The budget of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will continue to be presented in Parliament until elections to the Legislative Assembly are held. J&K has been without a Legislature since 2018. The government has emphasized that the September 30, 2024 deadline set by the Supreme Court for the conduct of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be followed. The administration aims for a budget of around Rs 1.20 lakh crore for the financial year of 2024-25.
The current year’s budget (2023-24) for Jammu and Kashmir is worth Rs 1,18,500 crore, while in the previous fiscal year (2022-23), it was Rs 1,12,950 crore.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had presented J&K’s budgets for 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24 on March 17, 2020, March 17, 2021, March 14, 2022, and March 13, 2023, respectively. The budget for 2019-2020 was adopted by the then State Administrative Council (SAC), while the budget for 2018-19 was last presented in the Assembly of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir by then Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu before the government collapsed in June 2018 following the withdrawal of support to the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government by the BJP.
