Meghalaya CM to present a pro-people budget

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaFebruary 27, 2025

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said that he is all set to present a ‘pro-people’ state budget for the financial year 2025-26 during the ten-day Assembly’s budget session, which will commence from Friday.

“It has to be pro people,” says Sangma during an interaction with media persons on Wednesday.

He however said that the state’s budget is not like the union budget because there is not much scope for tax introduction as taxes are more or less subjects of the central government.

“So, ours is mostly an expenditure related budget. So, we have only control on what we spend on…Yes, we have certain issues here and there like royalty and other things but that is bare minimum and not much impact but that can be decided at any given point in time. So the major revenue related decisions are made by the central government in terms of taxes direct and indirect taxes. Direct taxes of course are decided by the GST Council but ours is mostly related to expenditure related measures.”

The chief minister said that the government is working towards ensuring that it is able to spend in a manner in which all sectors are balanced out.

“Our expenditures have really gone up in the last many years and it is again in the same direction, we will be spending more and the budget will be higher this year,” he stated while informing that the overall performance of the state has really improved in terms of implementation of the different central government schemes.

“Therefore, we are getting additional funds which is why we have to increase the corpus fund as we are getting money but the provision in the budget. It is actually a positive thing. So, these kinds of things are there but more details of where we will be spending and how much I will share more in the budget,” he added further. 

The CM will present the budget in the Assembly on March 5.