Chandigarh: In the last budget before Punjab goes to polls early next year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Sunday announced the much-awaited largesse of Rs 1,000 per month as financial assistance to every eligible general category adult woman and Rs 1,500 to every Dalit adult woman in the state.
Giving Rs 1,000 as cash assistance to all women in the state was one of the AAP’s major pre-poll promises before it came to power in 2022. However, because the promise had remained unfulfiled, the government faced severe criticism from the Opposition for misleading women.
“Rs 9,300 crore have been provided in the budget for the execution of the scheme. Registration of women beneficiaries will begin on Baisakhi day. With this all pre-poll promises and guarantees of our party have been fulfilled,” said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann addressing media persons following the presentation of the budget.
Mann added that special camps will be organised across the state so that women can easily complete the formalities required to avail the benefit of the scheme.
The scheme, christened ‘Mukh Mantri Mawaan Dhian Satkar Yojna’ (Punjabi for Chief Minister’s Scheme to Honour Mothers and Daughters), is expected to affect 1.3 crore women, but the assistance is not universal and is limited to only those women who do not pay any taxes. Addressing a press conference, state finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that 97% of the women in Punjab will be covered under the scheme.
However, he ruled out paying any backlog, which the Congress demanded, on the grounds that the promise was made before the elections, and it had entitled women to Rs 48,000 each calculated for the past 4 years.
Chief Minister Mann said several schemes are being implemented to empower women, including free bus travel, free power and cashless treatment under the Mukh Mantri Sehat Yojna (Chief Minister’s Health Scheme). “Cashless treatment, free bus travel, free power, Rs 1,000 per month and other initiatives will empower women and strengthen their role in society,” he said.
Mann had earlier said that the budget had been especially scheduled on International Women’s Day to “honour the contribution of women to their families and society”.
He asserted that the government has adequate financial resources to implement its programmes effectively. “We have no dearth of money as our intentions are clear,” he said, adding that the state government has improved financial management and ensured that public funds are used for welfare and development.
Earlier this month, the Punjab government announced the Meri Rasoi Scheme. Under this scheme, 40 lakh households registered with the government through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana will receive basic grocery items every month in addition to the food grain already provided under the central scheme. The state allocated Rs 900 crore for the scheme in Sunday’s budget.
Rs 2.6 lakh crore budget presented
Presenting a Rs 2.60 lakh crore annual budget for 2026-27, the government will be raising an estimated debt of almost Rs 52,200 crore this year, apart from banking on another Rs 80,000 crore through ways and means advances (WMA) to meet its expenditure.
The WMA, a financial instrument of the Reserve Bank of India, is meant for central and state governments to tide over any mismatch in receipts and payments. However, it’s usually an emergency provision to be used sparingly.
Though not a part of Cheema’s speech, the financial statement released to the press following the budget presentation showed that Punjab’s outstanding debt is likely to touch an alarming Rs 4.47 lakh crore by the end of the new fiscal. This translates into a debt of Rs 1.49 lakh on every Punjabi’s head.
In the financial statement, the “effective” outstanding debt however, was projected as Rs 4.42 lakh crore after subtracting “back to back loans of Rs 20,491.41 crore received from Government of India in 2020–21 and 2021-22 in lieu of GST compensation shortfall”.
The total revenue receipts for 2026-27 are projected at Rs 1,26,190 crore. Of this, Rs 70,851 crore will come from Own Tax Revenue and Rs 15,687 crore from Non-Tax Revenue.
Of the proposed Rs 1.48 lakh crore revenue expenditure, the government will spend almost Rs 39,115 crore on salaries and wages and nearly Rs 22,465 crore on paying pensions. Of the rest, almost Rs 28,755 crore will go in payment of interest.
The Punjab government will be spending Rs 18,381 crore on capital expenditure, an increase from the current Rs 10,433 crore.
The FM pegged the revenue deficit at 2.24 per cent and the fiscal deficit at 4.08 per cent. Last year, the state had registered a revenue deficit of 2.69 per cent and a fiscal deficit of 3.84 per cent.
In the budget speech the finance minister announced an allocation of Rs 1,791 crore for sports and allied activities, “the highest ever in the history of Punjab,” claimed the FM. He said that the money would be utilised as part of a mega sports plan to complement the efforts of the Punjab government under the “Yudh Nashian Virudh” campaign. “Arresting people and ensuring that the supply chain of drugs is cut alone will not solve the problem. We have to make our youth shift towards sports,” said the finance minister.
The finance minister announced that the budget allocation under the “Rangla Punjab Scheme” to cater to every constituency in Punjab had increased from Rs 585 crore last year to Rs 1,170 this year.
Cheema said Rs 7,600 crore has been set aside for the construction and enhancement of rural link roads and another almost Rs 3,000 crore for the construction of irrigation canals across the state especially covering the tail end areas.
Cheema added that Rs 2,000 crore have been allocated for the Mukhyamantri Sehat Yojana–universal health coverage to all 65 lakh families of Punjab. The scheme provides for insurance cover of upto Rs 10 lakh.
The budget estimates for power subsidy have reduced from almost Rs 20,500 crore in the last budget to Rs 15,550 crores. Cheema explained that this reduction is expected because the government has undertaken major power sector reforms which will reduce the wastage involved in generation and distribution. He added that the power subsidy is also expected to come down because of the substantial shifting to solar energy. Rs 5,771 crore has been kept aside for free power to domestic households which consume less than 300 units per month. This is a reduction from Rs 7,614 crore that was allotted under this head last year.
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Opposition condemns budget
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring Sunday described the state budget as the “wrap up of a series of lies that the AAP has been doling out all these years”, while pointing out that the state debt has mounted by about 160 per cent of the total budget.
Reacting to the announcement of Rs 1,000 monthly stipend for women, Warring remarked, “it is too little too late, literally”. He pointed out, the AAP had won the elections in 2022 mainly on the promise of giving Rs 1,000 monthly cash assistance to all women of the state. If the AAP was sincere in its promise, it would have announced the payment with the four-year arrears that amounts to Rs 48,000 for every woman.
“They didn’t do it for four years and even when they announced it today, they have not spelt out the exact date from when the women will get this much of little money. It is like a post dated cheque with no guarantee of getting redeemed as the AAP is left with a limited time”, he added.
Punjab BJP head Sunil Jakhar said the budget would push the state into an even deeper debt crisis. He questioned where the money would come from to fund the promises made in the budget.
Talking to media persons in Moga, Jakhar said that helping poor and needy people is the government’s responsibility, but to ensure that this does not turn into another deception of the people before the Assembly elections, the government must clearly explain where the Rs 1,000 crore required every month for the scheme promising cash assistance to women will come from and how this funding will continue in the future. He also questioned whether funds from other schemes would be cut to distribute money to women for a few months before elections and then abandon the scheme after securing votes.
He said that the finance minister himself admitted that the state’s debt would cross Rs 4.59 lakh crore, and in reality it could reach Rs 5 lakh crore by the end of the next financial year.
Shiromani Akali Dal MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia also criticised the government over its promise of giving Rs 1,000 per month to women, saying the government has tried to mislead women by making announcements without addressing the pending dues.
Speaking to the media after the budget was presented in the assembly, Majithia said that before coming to power, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal had promised the mothers and sisters of Punjab that once the party formed the government, every woman over 18 years old would start receiving Rs 1,000 per month.
However, she said that even after four years of the government, there is no proposal in the budget to pay the pending amount for the last four years.
Majithia said the government has also failed to explain whether it plans to pay the full amount due to women or whether it intends to distribute money only for a few months ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
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