India’s budget for FY 25-26 may be perceived as a balancing act. While the increase in capital expenditure in the current budget has been similar to the budgets of previous years, there has been a shift to a more consumption-led path. This author, while analyzing the budget of 2022-23, (The Statesman, 4 April 2022), had noted that the underlying philosophy of that budget was “investment for growth”, interpreting thereby the Government of India’s actions in backing up its future plans for the economy with capital expenditure in sectoral allocations with an outlay of Rs 35 lakh crores which was a 35 per cent rise over that of the previous years, constituting 2.9 per cent of the GDP, the highest over the last twenty years.

Over fiscals 2023 to 2025, the Union government, however, has spent 5.4 per cent less than what was budgeted as capex allocations. Grants in aid for creation of capital assets was 15.6 per cent lower than budgeted during these three fiscals. Disappointments were reflected in lower expenditure in both the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojanas (PMAY), Gramin as well as Sahari, as well as in the state apex loans falling short of their Rs 1.5 lakh crore target. In the backdrop of budgetary capex outlay falling short of target, it was the public sector undertakings which met targets, reflecting a RE of Rs 3.82 lakh crore as against BE of Rs 3.68 lakh crore, the IEBR led capex ac counting for 27.3 per cent of the total central apex in fiscal 2025.

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Tardy infrastructure sector performance was also reflected in the performance of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Communications, their budgetary capital outlay in fiscal 2025 reflecting rationalized revised estimates. In Ministry of Finance, RE has been estimated at Rs 1.58 lakh crore as against a BE of Rs 2.21 lakh crore; the RE in the Ministry of Defence has been estimated at Rs 1.60 lakh crores as against a BE of Rs 1.72 lakh crore and the Ministry of Communications estimates a RE of Rs 0.76 lakh crore as against a BE of Rs 0.86 lakh crore.

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Similarly, in fiscal........

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