Union Budget 2025: Bonanza for Bihar: neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride

Dressed in a cream and red Madhubani saree, featuring Bihar’s iconic art, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman heaped promises on the poll-bound State in her Budget presentation on Saturday (February 1, 2025). The slew of projects kept key NDA ally, the Janata Dal (United), in good humour, while generating envy from other regional parties, as well as taunts from the Opposition’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which termed the announcements empty rhetoric in the absence of a special package for the State. 

Bihar is set to go to the polls later this year. The Mithalanchal region of the State got special attention in the Budget. Key announcements include ₹11,500 crore of financial support for the Western Koshi Canal Extension, Renovation, and Modernisation (ERM) Project, and a new Makhana Board for foxnut farmers. The canal project, Ms. Sitharaman said, will benefit “farmers cultivating over 50,000 hectares of land in Bihar”. 

Foxnuts to airports

The Makhana Board will “improve production, processing, value addition, and marketing” of foxnuts, the Finance Minister said. Mithila Makhana got a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2022, and 80% of India’s total makhana production is harvested in Bihar. The move is likely to benefit over five lakh farmers in the region, especially in the districts of Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, Katihar, Purnia, Kishanganj, Araria, Supaul, and Madhepura. Foxnut farmers are predominantly from extremely backward classes, a group that the RJD has been actively trying to woo. 

Aviation is another sector set to get a boost in Bihar. “Greenfield airports will be facilitated in Bihar to meet the future needs of the State. These will be in addition to the expansion of the capacity of Patna airport and a brownfield airport at Bihta,” Ms. Sitharaman said, though no specifics were shared on where the new airports will be located.

Education and temples

“An additional allocation to support capital investments will be provided. The requests of the Bihar government for external assistance from multilateral development banks will be expedited,” Ms. Sitharaman said. Under the Union government’s Purvodaya initiative to develop eastern India, a National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Management will be established in Bihar. The Budget promises an expansion of hostel and other infrastructure facilities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna.

Ms. Sitharaman also promised support for the comprehensive development of the 17 Vishnupad and the Mahabodhi temple corridor, along the lines of the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor, and pledged aid to develop Nalanda as a tourist centre and revive the Nalanda University to its “glorious stature”.  

Divided views

Applauding the announcements, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar said that the Union Budget was positive and progressive. “The Budget will give further impetus to the development of Bihar” and “will accelerate the economic development of the State,” he said. Another BJP ally, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) president and Union Minister Chirag Paswan, credited the National Democratic Alliance’s “double engine” government for “laying the foundation of a developed Bihar”.

The RJD, on the other hand, questioned both the symbolism and substance of the announcements. RJD leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav said that none of these promises were new. “Everyone including the Bihar government was demanding a special package, which we did not get. the Budget is completely a jumlabaazi (claptrap),” Mr. Yadav said. RJD leader and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj K. Jha dismissed it as “old wine in an old bottle with a stinky wrapper”. 

Taking a potshot at the government, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that it was only natural for the government to offer a “bonanza” to Bihar where an election is due later this year. At the same time, he asked, “But why has the other pillar of the NDA, namely Andhra Pradesh, been so cruelly ignored?” Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee also criticised the Budget’s focus on Bihar, while ignoring other States, including West Bengal.