Plugging leaks in the government departments and funds from the central pool are Bengal finance minister Swapan Dasgupta's twin solutions to bring the state out of decades of financial stagnation.
"For years Bengal behaved as if it was outside India. Central funds were not touched. There are central schemes that we were not even aware of," Dasgupta in his reply to the budget discussion in the floor of the Assembly on Thursday late afternoon.
Dasgupta said Bengal could get financial assistance estimated around Rs. 60,000 crore from different centrally-sponsored schemes.
"Prime minister Narendra Modi and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman have pointed towards projects and schemes that we can bring to Bengal," Dasgupta. "This budget points to the direction in which we want to take Bengal in the coming days."
The finance minister also announced an audit of all the government departments to identify the leaks from where pilferage of government funds happened under the previous government.
"From the Opposition members we came to know of corruption in different departments. They could not raise these issues earlier. Audit will be carried out in all the department and a white paper published. The CAG reports which were not made public will be made public," the finance minister said.
A slew of financial assistance schemes for different sections of the society were announced in the budget for the 2026-27 fiscal presented by Dasgupta on June 22.
The Opposition's question to the finance minister was where cash-strapped Bengal would get the funds from.
Without getting into economic jargon, Dasgupta explained to the MLAs, many of them first-time legislators, what the BJP government had in mind for Bengal.
"Opposition members made several suggestions, they asked why more funds could not be allocated in some of the departments. I can assure all the members the demands will be considered," the finance minister said.
The finance minister also announced a hike of Rs. 2,000 in the salaries of teachers in government colleges and vocational training centres. He also announced a new police station for women in North 24-Parganas Sandeshkhali, which had hit the national headlines ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls for atrocities on women and land-grabbing by local Trinamool leaders.