Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala are going to polls in a few months and Budget 2021-22 rolled out large amounts for infrastructure and Railways. Tamil Nadu got the biggest chunk of Rs 1.03 lakh crore while Kerala was allotted Rs 65,000 crore for roads.
The BJP has tied up with AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and is going into the polls without former Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and faces competition from the DMK-Congress combine. The focus was on the Madurai-Kollam and Chittor-Thachur corridors, for which work will begin in 2021. Rs 63,000 crore has been allocated for Chennai metro.
The BJP won it’s first seat in the 2016 Assembly elections in Kerala. 1,100 km of road projects, including Kanyakumari-Mumbai corridor has been also been planned. Sitharaman went on to announce that work is expected to begin soon on the Phase-II of Kochi Metro Railway stretching over 11.5 km long at a cost of Rs 1,957.05 crore.
ALSO READ : Budget 2021: Mobile Phones, Leather Items To Cost More As FM Increases Customs Duty
Shifting focus to East India, Rs 34,000 crore has been allocated to Assam forit’s road projects over three years with more than 1,300 km of national highways.
With the BJP-Trinamool Congress(TMC) tussle for power in West Bengal, Rs 25,000 crore was earmarked for 695 km of highway including up gradation of the existing Kolkata-Siliguri road connectivity. Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor will be extended by 274.3 kms from Gomoh in Jharkhand to Dankuni in West Bengal said Sitharaman. She also proposed another dedicated freight corridor between Kharagpur in West Bengal and Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh.
An announcement of a special Rs 1000-crore welfare scheme for tea plantation workers of Assam and West Bengal is on the list too.
The opposition parties in these states are crying hoarse over the finance minister’s bias to other states to win brownie points. Riding high on infrastructure, the union government is looking to put emphasis on boosting development in India’s eastern and southern states, moreso to win voter’s confidence ahead of Assembly polls.