Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the longest-serving Finance Minister, presented the Union Budget for 2026–2027 in Parliament yesterday (01.02.2026) for the ninth time. From a commercial and industrial perspective, the budget for this year seems largely ordinary, without introducing any notable new policies. Announcements such as establishing a women’s hostel in every district, setting up a Central Cultural Centre at Adichanallur, developing 20 new inland waterways over the next five years to raise domestic waterway transport from the current 6% to 12%, reducing TCS on foreign tour packages to 2%, allocating ₹10,000 crore for the development of Micro and Small Enterprises, introducing “Content Creation Labs” in 15,000 schools and 2,000 colleges, and reducing taxes on 17 types of cancer drugs are all seem to be regular budgetary announcements rather than trailblazing initiatives.
The announcement of seven new high-speed rail corridors across the country including two routes, Hyderabad–Chennai and Chennai–Bengaluru, along with the reduction of the fiscal deficit from 6.5% to 4.3%, are indeed welcome measures. However, with the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections, it is disappointing to note that there are no specific announcements for Tamilnadu in this year’s budget. In particular, long-awaited projects such as the Madurai Metro Rail, Bus Port, NIPER (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research), and the Madurai Airport runway expansion have not been mentioned, nor has any fund allocation been made for them, which is deeply disappointing. Moreover, the allocations for key sectors remain particularly low ₹1,62,671 crore for agriculture, ₹1,39,289 crore for education, ₹1,04,599 crore for public health, and ₹70,296 crore for trade and industry all of which cannot be considered adequate in view of the total expenditure of ₹53.5 lakh crore. These vital sectors ought to have been allocated greater financial support. Similarly, the current personal income tax exemption limit of ₹4 lakh should have been increased further to provide greater relief to taxpayers.
Ultimately, the 2026–2027 Union Budget has disappointed, falling short of the hopes of the trade and industry sector.