-Baishali Mukherjee
West Bengal Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya on February 12 presented a Rs 3.89 lakh crore budget for 2025-26, emphasising increased spending on education, health, and infrastructure development. In the 2024-25 budget, the state saw an allocation of Rs 3.67 lakh crore, an eight percent increase from the 2023-24 budget.
Among the key budget allocations for 2025-26, a significant 41,153.79 crore has been allocated to the school and higher education sector. 5,602.29 crore is allocated to the Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department to ensure inclusivity and promote educational and subsequently career opportunities for minority communities. Moreover, 44,139.65 crore is allocated to Panchayats and Rural Development.
The Women and Child Development and Social Welfare department received 38,762.03 crore. The social service sector, the cornerstone of Banerjee’s political success, was projected to increase to 99,016.28 crore in 2025-26. Additionally, Rs 13,381.68 crore has been earmarked for the Urban and Municipal Development Department.
The West Bengal government also tried to address the long term agitation of the State government employees over dearness allowance (DA), by announcing a 4% hike, which will be effective from April 1, 2025, bringing the total DA to 18 percent. Other highlights of the budget included a scheme to arrest river erosion, funds for buying smart phones for ASHA and Anganwadi workers and allocations for rural roads and bridges connecting Sagar Island. Bhattacharya underscored the importance of the integration of rural and urban economies, saying, “Employment opportunities for rural people will be created, which will also nourish the urban economy. We aim to create this synergy.”
While presenting the budget, Bhattacharya, claimed that close to 2 crore jobs have been created in industry and other sectors of the state, which helped in bringing down the unemployment rate to 4.14 per cent against the national rate of about 8 percent in January 2025. The state had also pulled 92 lakh people out of poverty line till 2021. The finance minister shared that West Bengal’s economy measured in terms of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) has exceeded 18 trillion and the GSDP at constant prices has increased by 6.8 per cent in 2024-25 (1st AE). She added that Asian Development Bank, along with Korea Exim Bank (KEXIM) is offering technical and financial assistance to the state government for developing six industrial and economic corridors across West Bengal.
“The industrial and economic corridors will leverage the geographic location of the state and enable West Bengal to emerge as a key manufacturing and logistics hub. The initial project cost will be around Rs 4,400 crore for four corridors. At Deocha Pachami, the second largest coal block, basalt mining has already started. The government expects the project along with ancillary industries to create significant employment opportunities,” Bhattacharya told the media after the budget presentation.
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