Modi 3.0’s first full budget became a major disappointment for Kerala. The southern state, reeling under financial stress, expected a special economic package from Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Kerala has yet to fully recover from the disastrous floods of 2018 and subsequent years. However, Kerala was not mentioned in Sitharaman’s budget speech, even though she declared flood mitigation packages for several other states.
Kerala state government and the union government have been in a dispute over the state's borrowing limits. The Kerala government claims that the fiscal policies of the union government have driven the state into financial distress, while the Centre blames the state government’s poor management of public finances for its fiscal woes. Nevertheless, Kerala had hoped that the union government would compensate for the reduction in the finance commission grant and revenue deficit grant. For national highway development, the Kerala state government bears 25 per cent of the amount required for land acquisition. The state had requested a Rs 24,000 crore package to alleviate its financial distress. However, Sitharaman’s speech did not offer any special relief for the southern state.
Moreover, the state expected the declaration of an AIIMS and a special package for infrastructure development in areas associated with the Vizhinjam International Seaport, which is currently in trial operations.
Suresh Gopi, BJP’s first MP in Kerala, has been appointed as Union Minister of State for Tourism. Gopi recently proposed a pilgrimage tourism circuit that begins in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu and extends to Lourdes Matha Church in Thrissur, Kerala. However, no special tourism packages or pilgrimage tourism circuits were announced for Kerala, which has immense tourism potential.
Farmers received special focus in the budget. However, Kerala’s rubber farmers' expectations that the government would raise the minimum support price to Rs 200 were in vain. Congress-led UDF Opposition MPs from Kerala have already declared that Sitharaman’s budget lacks national character, citing special consideration given to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh to appease Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu.
Revolutionary Socialist Party’s N.K. Premachandran, a fiery leader from the UDF, dubbed the NDA as the N-square dependent alliance (Naidu-Nitish Dependent Alliance) and criticized the budget for brutally ignoring non-BJP-ruled states like Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
