The other day, the union finance minister, Nirmala Seetharaman presented the union budget amid much anticipation. However, the budget has been a rather disappointing one for South India.
Barring Andhra Pradesh, which got around 10 allocations including the Rs 15,000 crore funding to Amaravati through multilateral agencies, no other South state got any mention in the budget.
Shockingly, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka got zero grants and allocations in the new budget. In fact, these states weren’t even mentioned in the budget presentation which has led to severe retorts from all quarters.
There is now an increasing commotion that perhaps the South Indian states need a separate finance minister who would actually understand the fiscal dynamics of these states and make the necessary arrangements in the budget.
Notably, foreign countries like Bhutan(Rs 2000+ crore) and Maldives(Rs 400+ crore) allocations in the budget while our very own South states drew a blank.