Omar Abdullah Meets Nirmala Sitharaman Ahead of J&K's First Budget as Union Territory

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called upon Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi today in his pre-budget consultations. Sitharaman will present the Union budget on February 1, while Omar, being in charge of the Finance Department, will present his maiden budget for Jammu and Kashmir as a Union Territory.

Though the date of Jammu and Kashmir budget session is not announced yet, it is supposed to be mid-February. The budget session must be approved before March 31. For the first time in six years, the Legislature will present Jammu and Kashmir's budget.

Omar met Sitharaman at her office in the North Block for over 30 minutes, which sources term "cordial". This is the second time the two have met in two months. Earlier, Sitharaman had met him in November after taking charge as Chief Minister, days after coming to power. He was also present at the GST Council meeting chaired by Sitharaman in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, last month where he came up with his states' viewpoint.

According to media reports, today in the Centre's meeting Omar asked for more fundings from it, asking more financial aid and decreasing liabilities to a greater level. The Finance Minister told Omar he would do something for him so that his requirements would be dealt with.

It has been placed before the parliament on 23rd July, 2024 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of the Jammu and Kashmir size with a financial year, Rs 1,18,728 crore of the year 2024-2025. However, due to Lok Sabha elections, a Vote-on-Account (Interim Budget) was passed on February 5, 2024 in Lok Sabha. The size of last year's budget was Rs 1,18,500 crores.

It will be interesting to see if an increase in its budgetary provision is allowed for Jammu and Kashmir. The last state budget was presented by Dr. Haseeb Drabu, Finance Minister then, before the Legislative Assembly on January 11, 2018, for a sum of Rs 80,313 crore.

After the PDP-BJP coalition government collapsed in June 2018, and the Assembly was dissolved in November, the SAC led by Governor Satya Pal Malik adopted the budget for 2019-2020 on December 15, 2018, which stood at Rs 88,911 crore.

Subsequent budgets of Jammu and Kashmir from 2020-2021 up to 2024-2025 were introduced in Parliament without a Legislative Assembly, which was also passed by it. However, the Finance Department has already met other departments and collected their demands for the annual budget of 2025-26.