With women, Dalits, infrastructure, and industrial development as its focus, and the forthcoming Assembly elections in its mind, chief minister Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government hiked its budget for the financial year 2025-26 by a whopping ₹38,000 crore to ₹3.17 lakh crore on Monday.
The increase in the size was around 13.7 per cent over the 2.79 lakh crore for 2024-25. Deputy chief minister and finance minister Samrat Choudhary tabled the budget in the legislative Assembly.
However, around ₹2.01 lakh crore of the budget would be spent on providing salary, pension, and on meeting the cost of running the government. Of this amount, around ₹1.19 lakh crore would have to be spent just on providing salaries and pensions, and around ₹46,000 crore would go towards payment of interest and repayment of public debt in 2025-26.
Choudhary told the Assembly: “We will run ‘pink buses’ in the main cities. Their passengers, drivers and conductors will be women. We will establish driving training centres for women in various cities, in which the trainers will also be women. We will provide cash grants to women to buy e-rickshaws and two-wheelers for commercial use.”
“We will have ‘pink toilets’ for women in all cities in the state, including 20 in the first phase. Hostels for working women will be constructed in every major city. The government will provide rented accommodation for women constables near the police stations where they are posted,” Choudhary added.
As per the budget, “marriage halls” would be established across the state to facilitate the wedding ceremonies for poor women at a nominal cost. An exclusive “haat” (market) in Patna and dedicated vending zones for women would also be established.
“We have decided to have greenfield airports (as announced in the Union budget) at Rajgir (Nalanda), Sultanganj (Bhagalpur) and Raxaul (East Champaran). The civilian airport at Purnea will become operational within a few months. We will also develop small airports at Bhagalpur, Valmikinagar, Birpur (Supaul), Madhubani, Munger, Saharsa, and Muzaffarpur for small, 19-seater aircraft,” Choudhary said.
The hostel grant for the scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) students would be doubled to ₹2000 from the existing ₹1000 per month. The pre-matric scholarship for them would also be doubled, and 14 residential schools for them would be constructed in 2025-26.