Budget 2026 Doles Out Infra, Rail, and Tourism Sops
New Delhi: As West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam gear up for high-stakes Assembly elections, the Union Budget 2026-27 has quietly focused on poll-bound states and rolled out various infrastructure proposals, including a rare earth corridor, dedicated freight transit and proposed high-speed rail networks, along with central support to agriculture.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the ninth Union Budget draped in the magenta-coloured Kattam Kanchipuram sari, traditionally woven in Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram district. The surveyed state was given budget allocation for railways, critical minerals and manufacturing sectors.
It is part of the rare earth mineral corridors along with Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Several high-speed corridors have also been proposed that would pass through the southern state dominated by Dravidian political actors.
The Union Budget also talks about developing birdwatching trails along Pulikat Lake and Adichanallur archaeological site into vibrant and cultural destinations. An ecologically sustainable mountain road will be developed at Podhigai Malai in the Western Ghats, located on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In her Budget speech, Ms. Sitharaman said, “We will develop seven high-speed rail corridors between cities as growth connectors. Hyderabad-Chennai and Chennai-Bengaluru will be among them,” with a view to promoting environmentally sustainable passenger systems. he said.
For West Bengal, a new dedicated freight corridor connecting Dankuni in Hooghly district to Surat in Gujarat, an integrated East Coast Industrial Corridor with a major node at Durgapur and tourism-focused interventions under the Centre’s Purvodaya vision have been proposed in the Union Budget.
The budget also proposed creation of tourism destinations in five ‘Purvodaya’ states and making provisions for 4,000 e-buses; Announcements that the BJP believes can be leveraged in a state where employment, urban mobility and regional imbalance have become major talking points in elections. However, his timing did not go unnoticed.
While it stopped short of announcing a special financial package for West Bengal, the infrastructure-heavy focus in the Budget is seen as the BJP’s pre-poll development roadmap in the state, which has been ruled by the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government for nearly 15 years.
In the northeastern state of Assam, the Union Budget promised the development of Buddhist circles and the development of the National Institute of Mental Health in Tezpur as a regional apex institute.
The Union Budget promised SHE-Marts (self-help markets) and Rs 2 lakh crore under special assistance for capital investment to states. The budget also proposed a major incentive for trauma and urgent care centers and the promotion of tourism destinations in the region.
Besides the rare earth mineral corridor, poll-bound Kerala has been promised several infrastructure projects, including turtle roads, promotion of inland waterways and promotion of coastal cargo along key areas in the coastal regions. The state, along with Tamil Nadu, will also benefit from Central support for high-value agricultural produce such as cocoa, coconut and cashew.
