SRINAGAR: After a hiatus of seven years, Jammu & Kashmir’s annual budget will be presented in its Assembly next month. The budget estimates for 2025-26 and revised estimates for 2024-25 are likely to be presented around mid-February.
“The Union Territory’s cabinet, led by Omar Abdullah, would soon recommend to the LG to summon the Assembly,” sources said. Sources disclosed that the budget session is expected to commence between February 10 and 15 and would last for three to four weeks.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who also serves as the Finance Minister, will present the budget. This would mark the first time Abdullah presents the budget himself. During the six years of NC-Congress rule from 2009 to 2014, the annual budget was tabled by then Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather.
This would be the first time in over seven years that J&K’s annual budget is presented in its Assembly. The last budget was tabled on January 11, 2018, by Haseeb Drabu, who was the Finance Minister of the erstwhile state.
Following the collapse of the PDP-BJP government, the 2019-20 budget was approved by the then J&K Governor as head of the State Administrative Council. After the downgrading of J&K to a Union Territory in August 2019, all its budgets were presented in the Parliament. Over the past five years, J&K’s budgets have been presented and approved by Parliament, which exercised the legislative powers of the J&K Assembly in the absence of an elected government.
The Union Territory’s annual budget for the ongoing fiscal year was presented in Parliament in July this year. (KNO)
