Budget promises vs reality: Underspending across ministries get wider

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Every 1 February, the nation tunes it for Union budget, parsing how the finance minister allocates limited resources to meet vast public expectations. This, however, is not a story about how these financial plans satisfy citizens, economists, or policymakers, but rather how the Union government and its fifty-plus ministries adhere to their own internal targets.

On that count, the results are often underwhelming. A Mint analysis comparing budgeted outlays with actual expenditure between FY10 and FY26, excluding the pandemic years of FY21 and FY22, shows that several ministries and flagship schemes faced sharp spending compression toward the end of the fiscal year. The squeeze intensified as the government walked a narrow fiscal tightrope, honouring its consolidation glide path while navigating post-pandemic economic fragility.

Front-loading allocations for key ministries at the beginning of the fiscal year is routine. So, too, is severe undershooting by the year-end. Data available since 2009-10 shows that roughly a quarter of ministries (out of 53 listed by the government) have, on average, spent less than 80% of their budgeted allocations.

The worrying part is thatthe trend has become wider and more severe in recent years. Between FY23 and FY25, 12-13% of ministries spent less than 50% of their allotted funds, compared with just 2-3% on average in the decade preceding the pandemic. By FY25, nearly half used less than 80% of their allocations.

FY26 revised estimates indicate some improvement, though these figures remain estimates. Actual expenditure numbers will only be known after the release of provisional numbers in May and final numbers in Budget 2027. The Narendra Modi government,