Everyone gets a bite
With part of India almost always electoral, central budgets invariably attract attention for any special focus on election-related states. While states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala that went to the polls found mention in External Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget announcements, the breadth of their new initiatives has affected other states as well.It said four mineral-rich coastal states – Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu – will receive support to create dedicated “rare earth corridors” to promote mining, processing, research and manufacturing. The rare earth sector, which is dominated by China, is prioritized by the government and is crucial to high-tech and green industry.
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The budget proposals for creating an integrated industrial corridor on the east coast, creating five tourist destinations in the largest number of Porvodaya states, and developing Buddhist constituencies, extend across a vast region, including the other two election-bound states, West Bengal and Assam.
The general view among political observers was that the footprint of electoral accounts was not as deep in this budget as we have seen in the past. Sitharaman’s speech last year had sparked harsh criticism from the Opposition’s “Chunavi Budget” over its generous announcements on Bihar, which was scheduled to go to the polls in November.“There is enough to cover all the electoral states,” she said in her post-budget press conference on Sunday. “If I did that (focusing on election-related states), you would ask me why I did that.”
It has now done so in electoral and non-electoral states as well.In its ninth consecutive Budget, it proposed a well-connected node in Durgapur in Bengal for the industrial corridor, while Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura will be part of the Buddhist circle projects.The initiative to build world-class trekking and hiking facilities will cover a number of states, including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, along with parts of the Eastern and Western Ghats.
Turtle trails will also be developed in coastal areas of Odisha, Karnataka and Kerala and bird watching trails in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Seven inter-city high-speed rail corridors will cover parts of the states of Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal.Also unveiled were programs to make India self-reliant in cashew and cocoa and turn the products into premium global brands by 2030, restore the glory of the ‘sandalwood ecosystem’, and a ‘coconut promotion scheme’ to promote high-value agriculture, which will help many states, especially in south India.
