Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the pre-budget consultation meeting with Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan last evening.

The participants gave several valuable suggestions to the Union Finance Minister for consideration in the Union Budget for the Financial Year 2025-26. Speaking on the occasion, Ms Sitharaman said, that because of the healthy macroeconomic environment, buoyancy and efficiency in the tax collections, the funds devolved to the States in the last 45 months from April 2021 to December 2024 under the 15th Finance Commission is more than what was devolved in 60 months under the 14th Finance Commission from 2015 to 2020.

The Union Finance Minister also referred to the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI), which was first announced in the Union Budget 2020-21. She said the scheme has received a good response from the States. The States have been requesting the Central Government to enhance the outlay under the Scheme as it is leading to the construction of crucial capital assets in the States. Ms Sitharaman stated that the Centre has allocated an additional amount of approximately 30,000 crore rupees as ‘Untied Funds’ under the SASCI-2024-25. The allocation can be used by the State Governments in any sector to further increase expenditure on the creation of capital assets.

Along with Union Minister for State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, the meeting was also attended by Chief Ministers of Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Odisha and Deputy Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana and Finance Ministers of several States and Union Territories. Secretaries of Departments of Economic Affairs and Expenditure, and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance were also present during the meeting.