Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday tabled a Rs 7.20 lakh crore annual state budget for 2025-26 with Rs 45,892 crore revenue deficit and Rs 1,36,234 crore fiscal deficit.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis lauded the state budget and said apart from Uttar Pradesh with 22 crore population, Maharashtra with 12 crore population is the only state that has proposed a Rs 7.20 lakh crore budget, indicating the mammoth scale of the exercise.
Ajit Pawar said the state annual revenue receipt for 2024-25 is Rs 5.60 lakh crore against Rs 6.06 lakh crore revenue expenditure.
He said that the majority of the budgetary amount is earmarked for the agriculture sector and its development. “The state economic survey report revealed 8% growth in agriculture growth against three percent last year in Maharashtra. Therefore, we decided to push the agriculture sector growth by bringing innovative technology such as artificial intelligence (AI). The main aim is to provide crop planning advice to farmers to reduce the production cost, increase productivity and secure sustainable development,” he said.
He said in the first phase, the earmarked Rs 500 crore for development of AI technology for the agriculture sector will help over 50,000 farmers, with over one lakh hectares of land coming under it.
The Finance Minister said that the state government has made a provision in the budget to complete irrigation schemes and maximise the area of land under irrigation.
“We approved the Wainganga—Nalganaga river linking project that helps farmers of six districts. The estimated cost of this project is Rs 88,574 crore. It will help to bring 3,71,277 hectares of land under irrigation in Maharashtra. Besides, Rs 7500 crore has been approved for Nar-Par-Grina river linking project that will bring 49,516 hectares of land under irrigation. Moreover, the Daman Ganga Ekdare-Godavari river linking project will provide 3.55 TMC water, restoring 9766 hectares of land. The estimated cost of this project is Rs 2300 crore,” he said, adding the state government has also undertaken an ambitious Rs 19,000 crore worth Tapi Mahapurandaran irrigation project.
Ajit Pawar said power supply is a key factor for the growth of the agriculture sector hence the government has planned to provide abundant electricity to farmers.
“We will try to meet the 16,000 MW of electricity demand in the agriculture sector by encouraging solar power supply to agriculture pumps. We launched the CM Solar Agriculture Feeder Scheme 2.0 for 2779 electric substations across 27 districts. In Maharashtra, by end January 2024, a total of 2,90,129 solar agriculture pumps have been installed and each day, 1000 solar pumps are being installed in the state,” he added.