Maharashtra govt tables supplementary demands of ₹6,486 crore in budget session

This means the total supplementary or additional demands, worth ₹1,37,163 crore, are a whopping 22.4% of the ₹6.12 lakh crore budget sanctioned last year

Mumbai: On the first day of the Maharashtra assembly’s budget session, the state government on Monday tabled supplementary demands of ₹6,486 crore, taking the total supplementary budget for the financial year 2024-25 to ₹1,37,163 crore.

Experts said the additional demands indicated fiscal indiscipline caused by the launch of populist schemes such as the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana ahead of the Assembly polls last year. (Praful Gangurde /Hindustan Times)

This means the supplementary or additional demands are a whopping 22.4% of the ₹6.12 lakh crore budget sanctioned last year, which experts said indicated fiscal indiscipline caused by the launch of populist schemes such as the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana ahead of the Assembly polls last year.

“The size of the supplementary budget is the highest in recent times, if not in history,” said an official from the state finance department. “The allocations for flagship schemes like Ladki Bahin were done in the supplementary demands, which means the outlay from the original budget was diverted as the total spending remains less than the original budget.”

This was the third time the state government tabled supplementary demands in the ongoing financial year, after June ( ₹94,889 crore) and December ( ₹35,788 crore).

The state government said in a statement that the total spending from the budget announced by finance minister Ajit Pawar last year is expected to be ₹5.97 lakh crore, against the budgetary outlay of ₹8.07 lakh crore—a difference of ₹2.1 lakh crore. This includes the ₹6.69 lakh crore allocated in the budget and the supplementary demands worth ₹1.37 lakh crore. With pre-election sops worth over ₹1 lakh crore, the state’s revenue deficit in FY2024-25 is expected to be over ₹15,000 crore, while the fiscal deficit is expected to be over ₹2 lakh crore.

Rupesh Keer, a member of NGO Samarthan, which studies the state budget, said the additional budgetary demands of this scale point to fiscal indiscipline. “The state government needs to explain that if it has not been able to spend over ₹2 lakh crore of the budgeted outlay, where this cut has been initiated. It should come clear to disclose which are the schemes and projects that have been scrapped due to the burden of populist schemes. The government has diverted the budget of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to populist schemes, depriving the backward classes of their due budget,” he added.