Manipur Budget 2025-26 ignores humanitarian crisis
Source: Chronicle News Service / Prof Chinglen Maisnam

Imphal, March 10 2025: Vote on Account Budget for Manipur for the next fiscal year 2025-26, placed in the parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitha-raman on Monday (10th March), is seen as a temporary financial plan during the President's Rule, aimed at meeting immediate financial requirements.

The Vote on Account Budget for 2025-26 is placed to enable the state government to discharge its responsibilities and meet all essential expenditure during the first six months of the financial year 2025-26 .

The full budget will be presented at a later date.

The tentative budget, however, has proposed a total expenditure of Rs 35,103.91 crore for the next fiscal year.

I would like to term the vote on account budget 2025-26 presented by the Union Finance Minister as regressive as well as contractionary.

The budget proposal has largely ignored the appalling need for expansionary fiscal trajectory.

Like the previous state government, the union government has also committed to fiscal conservatism.

Instead of expanding the budget size to stimulate growth, employment and people's livelihood, the tentative budget sees a sharp contraction.

Once we factor in inflation, we find that there has been a severe compression in the entire sphere of expenditure.

It follows that the basic fiscal strategy of the budget is to reduce the outlays earmarked for the people.

The tentative budget clearly reflected that allocation for most of the departments have been slashed from the current year's budget estimates which in the long run will consequently have negative impact on implementation of development programmes.

The Vote on Account Budget shows a tentative idea of how the full budget will be shaping up.

With "expenditure contraction" as the main intention, the budget presented by the Union Finance Minister will not contribute to an expansion of the state economy.

What the state economy needs at the present moment is to kick-start a revival of the economy with active state intervention.

The need of the hour is to pursue an economic policy trajectory that will sharply expand our local market through a high dose of budgetary outlay.

Notwithstanding the constitutional limitations of a vote on account, the Central Government seems to remain in a state of total denial about the severity of the impact of the ongoing violence in the state.

This is not a budget that anyone in Manipur should be happy about.

This Vote on account budget makes a name sake announcements about immediate relief for the people of violence hit Manipur.

No major recovery plans have been announced for Manipur which badly needs huge fiscal package in the current explosive situation.

The relief and resettlement of displaced people of the state must also be the key priority for the budget.

It does not reflect any seriousness to address the worsening economic crisis of violence hit Manipur.

The budget should have focused on expanding economic activities.

Instead, it is contractionary.

The squeezing of expenditures has fallen on outlays on welfare schemes.

The budget presented today is a contractionary budget.

What the people required, on the contrary, is an expansionary budget.

The violence hit Manipur has one of the highest rates of inflation, unemployment, there is a growing level of restlessness and poverty, and unless the economy expands, none of these issues have been addressed.

The budget papers further reveal that going by its past record, even the inadequate allocations made cannot be taken at face value as the government does not spend the amount it promises it would.

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