Nirmala Sitharaman to unveil J&K’s Budget in Parliament on Monday; top official from UT reach Delhi
Srinagar: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would unveil the Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory’s budget for the next fiscal in the Parliament on Monday (March 13).
This would be the fourth budget of J&K UT in the Parliament after the reorganization of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir in August 2019.
As per the list of Lok Sabha’s business scheduled for tomorrow, the Union Finance Minister will present a statement showing the demands for grants in respect of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the year 2022-23.
She will also present a statement showing the supplementary demands for grants- the second batch for 2022-23. The budget is being presented in the Parliament as law-making powers of Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory are vested with it in absence of an elected government in the UT.
This would be the fourth consecutive budget of J&K UT in the Parliament. The budgets of UT for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 were unveiled in the Parliament by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
In June 2018, Jammu & Kashmir came under Governor’s rule after BJP withdrew support to Mehbooba Mufti-led government citing the deteriorating security situation in the state. The budget for 2019-20 was approved by the Governor-led State Administrative Council in December 2018 days before the erstwhile state came under President’s rule under Article 356 of the Constitution of India.
In the run-up to the budget, top officials of J&K’s Finance department are stationed in New Delhi over the past three days.
“ Director General, Budget MY Itoo and Joint Director Budget Shafat Yahya have already reached New Delhi. More officials are likely to join them tomorrow,” a senior official of the Finance department said. He said the size of J&K’s budget for the next fiscal would be more than 1.15 lakh crore.
For the ongoing fiscal (2022-23), Jammu and Kashmir were granted a budget of Rs 112950 crore. In the Union budget for next fiscal, J&K has been allocated Rs 35581.44 crore, of which Rs 33,923 crore is central assistance. The central assistance is given mainly to the UT to meet its resource gap—(KNO)
