Punjab FM announces Rs 10 lakh health cover for all in Rs 2.46 lakh cr budget for FY26, ET BFSI

Chandigarh: Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema introduced a Rs 10 lakh medical health insurance cowl for all households, steps to deal with drug menace and a ‘Rangla Punjab Vikas scheme’ for holistic improvement within the Rs 2.36-lakh-crore state funds for 2025-26 offered within the Meeting on Wednesday.

With a theme of ‘Badalda Punjab’ (reworking Punjab), Cheema stored the main target of his funds on the well being, training and different sectors within the fourth funds of the AAP authorities in Punjab.

In keeping with funds paperwork, the state’s excellent debt has been pegged at Rs 4.17 lakh crore (Rs 4,17,136 crore) for FY 2025-26 as towards revised estimates of Rs 3.82 lakh crore (Rs 3,82,934.98 crore) for 2024-25.

In his almost two-hour-long tackle, Cheema additionally introduced a mortgage waiver for the Scheduled Caste beneficiaries who defaulted on loans availed from Punjab Scheduled Castes Land Growth and Finance Company (PSCFC) and lowering service charge for availing authorities companies at their doorsteps from Rs 120 to Rs 50.

Dealing with flak from the opposition over not maintaining its ballot promise, the funds didn’t discover any point out of giving month-to-month earnings of Rs 1,000 to girls, which was one of many key guarantees of the AAP earlier than coming to energy.

Replying to a query, Cheema stated the state authorities will quickly launch it. “Completely different departments together with finance and social are conducting surveys for it,” he additional stated.

Calling the state funds the ‘Badalda Punjab roadmap’, Cheema, whereas presenting the funds doc within the House, stated, ” I suggest a complete funds expenditure of Rs 2,36,080 crore for FY 2025-26.” The funds estimated income deficit and monetary deficit at Rs 23,957 crore and Rs 34,201 crore, respectively, for the subsequent monetary yr.

The funds proposed Rs 9,992 crore as energy subsidy for the agriculture sector.

Acknowledging that the issue of medicine was the largest risk to the progress and prosperity of Punjab, Cheema additionally famous that the majority of the medicine are coming from throughout the border.

Saying steps to verify the smuggling of narcotics, Cheema introduced the state authorities will set up a second line of protection on the border by deploying 5,000 dwelling guards alongside the BSF.

He additional stated the federal government will deploy essentially the most superior and efficient anti-drone programs to trace and neutralize the delicate cross-border drones getting used to drop medicine and arms inside Punjab.

“I’m allocating a funds of Rs 110 crore in the direction of these initiatives subsequent yr,” he stated.

In one other initiative, he stated the federal government has determined to hold out a primary ever ‘drug census’ in Punjab subsequent yr.

“This Census will cowl each family of Punjab and can accumulate knowledge to know the prevalence of medicine, utilization of de-addiction facilities, and so on., apart from accumulating knowledge on socio-economic standing of the individuals of Punjab. We’ll use this knowledge to craft an efficient and scientific technique to eradicate the issue of medicine throughout the subsequent 1-2 years. Our authorities proposes to spend Rs 150 crore on this initiative,” he stated.

On the well being entrance, Cheema famous free and high quality healthcare ought to be accessible as a matter of proper to each citizen of India – no matter whether or not they’re wealthy or poor.

Cheema introduced to increase the state medical health insurance scheme to make it common and canopy all of the 65 lakh households of Punjab.

“There shall be no bar or discrimination – rural or city, wealthy or poor, everybody can take part on this scheme,” he stated.

“The second huge choice is that we’re extending the insurance coverage cowl for all of the households of Punjab to Rs 10 lakh each year. This contains these enrolled within the central authorities scheme too, they are going to get a further top-up cowl of Rs 5 lakh from the state authorities.

A sum of Rs 778 crore has been allotted for this objective, he stated.

Cheema stated to date, 45 lakh households of Punjab are enrolled in authorities medical health insurance schemes of which 16 lakh households are coated underneath the Central authorities’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana and the remaining 29 lakh households are coated underneath the Punjab authorities’s Mukh Mantri Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana. The insurance coverage protection for your entire household is simply Rs 5 lakh each year in these schemes.

Saying the ‘Rangla Punjab Vikas Scheme’–a new initiative devoted in the direction of restoring the misplaced glory of Punjab and guarantee holistic improvement of the state.

“The fund shall be administered by the district commissioners (DCs) and shall be spent based mostly on the suggestions of MLAs, group organizations, citizen teams and public-spirited residents.

This fund shall be an enormous enabler in making certain all-round improvement of all our districts throughout all sectors equivalent to development and restore of roads and bridges, street-lights, clinics, hospitals, colleges, water, sanitation and so on,” he stated.

I’m allocating Rs 585 crore (Rs 5 crore per constituency) for this scheme,” he stated.

Cheema additional introduced a brand new initiative, Khed-da Punjab, Badalda Punjab’ initiative, underneath which the federal government will promote sports activities on the grassroots degree by offering playgrounds and indoor gyms in each village of Punjab.

“We can even setup 3,000 indoor gyms all through Punjab in order that our youth even in villages have the perfect infrastructure to remain match and take part in aggressive sports activities,” he stated.

Recognizing ‘pinds’ (villages) as the guts and soul of Punjab, Cheema introduced “Badalde Pind, Badalda Punjab”, a brand new initiative to uplift the infrastructure in all 12,581 villages throughout the state within the subsequent two years.

The works will embrace cleansing and rejuvenation of village ponds, establishing sewage therapy programs, development of village playgrounds and so on.

The finance minister additionally introduced to launch “Mukh Mantri Street Light Yojana” for set up of two.5 lakh road lights within the subsequent yr all through Punjab.

To incentivize crop diversification, a brand new scheme protecting three districts particularly Bathinda, Kapurthala and Gurdaspur is being launched for Kharif maize crop, he stated.

“A complete of about 21,000 hectares shall be diversified from paddy to kharif maize to encourage the manufacturing of ethanol. The farmers will get a subsidy of Rs 17,500 per hectare for switching to Kharif maize cultivation,” he stated.

Cheema stated to advertise pure farming practices, a brand new initiative which can embrace consciousness programmes, cluster formation, incentives is proposed in 2025-26, initially protecting Amritsar, Shaheed Bhagat Singh (S.B.S) Nagar, Rupnagar, S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali), and Hoshiarpur districts.

He additionally introduced establishing a state-of-the-art shrimp processing unit to assist shrimp farming in waterlogged areas.

For the training sector, Cheema proposed Rs 17,975 crore, which is round 12 per cent of the entire expenditure.

Cheema additionally proposed to assemble a heritage road and auditorium at Shaheed Bhagat Singh (S.B.S) Nagar at a value of Rs 54 crore.

Within the funds, Cheema projected whole income receipts at Rs 1,11,740 crore, of which the Personal Tax Income accounts for Rs 63,250 crore.

The share of central taxes has been pegged at Rs 25,703 crore and grant-in-aid from the Centre at Rs 10,576 crore, stated Cheema.

He additionally proposed an allocation of Rs 233 crore to modernize and improve police infrastructure which incorporates development and renovation of police complexes, buy of land for police traces, police stations, and housing for the police personnel, and so on.