Mubashir Aalam Wani
Srinagar, Jan 17: 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 will be presented in the Assembly likely 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 likely to start somewhere between February 10 to 15 and would last for three to four weeks.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is also the minister in-charge of the Finance department, will present the budget. This would be the first time Omar Abdullah would be presenting the budget. In six years of NC-Congress rule from 2009 to 2014, the annual budget was presented by then Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather.
This would be after a gap of more than seven years that J&K’s annual budget would be presented in its assembly. The last budget was presented in the Assembly on January 11, 2018, when Haseeb Drabu was the finance minister of the erstwhile state.
After the collapse of the PDP-BJP government, the budget for 2019-20 was approved by then J&K Governor as head of the State Administrative Council. After the downgrading of J&K into a UT in August 2019, all its budgets were presented in the Parliament. As many as five budgets of J&K were presented and approved by the Parliament as legislative powers of the J&K Assembly were vested with it in the absence of an elected government in the UT.
The Union Territory’s annual budget for the ongoing fiscal was presented in the Parliament in July this year.
