Uttarakhand’s annual budget crossed the one lakh crore mark on Thursday as the Pushkar Singh Dhami government presented its 2025-26 budget of Rs 1.01 lakh crore, 13 per cent more outlay than Rs 89.23 thousand crore in the last financial year.

Reading out his budget speech in the house, State Finance Minister Premchand Agarwal said with a substantial rise in annual budgetary outlay over the previous year, provision for capital expenditure has been raised by seven per cent to Rs 14,764.13 crore. A major constituent of financial outlay for 2025-26 is the gender budget with a provision of Rs 16.96 thousand crore, an increase of 16.6 per cent from the previous budget allocation for the same purpose.
The Minister stated that this budget is based on the comprehensive framework of ecology, economy, innovation, technology, sustainable inclusive development, and accountability.

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Reacting to the budget allocation for 2025-26, the chief minister said “It’s an historical budget. For the first time in 25 years of the state’s formation, the Uttarakhand government has crossed Rs1 lakh crore in its annual budget allocation for the financial year 2025-26. There is a 13 per cent increase in this year’s budget over that of 2024-25. State budget size in the financial year increased by 24 times in the financial year 2025-26 after the first budget was tabled 25 years ago.”

The chief minister added, “Several new allocations have been made in this budget for a riverfront development scheme, formation of a council for nonresidents Uttarakhand, operation of electric buses under smart city project, new sports university, the institution of home guard welfare fund and setting up a revolving fund for state police personnel.

Dhami further said that the guiding force for this budget is the Hindi word abbreviated NaMo as it stands for innovation, self-reliant Uttarakhand, great heritage, and dynamic human resources.

According to Dhami, this budget advocates for inclusive and holistic development of the state with a focus on the poor, youths, farmers, and women welfare. “The state government has emphasised financial management in this budget. We will try to increase the income of the state from our resources. Special attention was paid towards the development of education, rural development, and infrastructure” said Dehradun.