J-K UT’s budget to be presented in Parliament tomorrow

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, as per the news agency KNO, 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 – 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 was granted a budget of Rs 112950 crore.

In the Union budget for the 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.