Budget 2026 Public Disappointment: On February 1, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was going to present the budget, the common man was looking at his Finance Minister with great interest. The middle class hoped that there would be tax exemption, the farmers hoped that there would be some improvement for them and the biggest hope was that of crores of people of those five states where assembly elections are to be held.
But when the Finance Minister’s budget speech ended, not only the common man but also the people of election states got a big shock because leave alone any hope, there was no mention of him anywhere. Today we will talk about those five expectations which were broken in the budget speech.
Income tax exemption
In the last budget, the Finance Minister had given huge relaxation in income tax and increased the income tax limit to Rs 12 lakh. Looking at that, it was expected that this time also there will be some relaxation in the budget and the limit will increase from Rs 12 lakh to Rs 13 or 14 lakh. But nothing like that happened.
There was no discussion on income tax and the result was that the taxpayer was disappointed. It was also expected that there would be some change in the new tax regime itself that the common man would get some exemption in tax. People were expecting rebate on investment in PPF, NPS or ELSS, but the Finance Minister did not even talk about it.
Special package for farmers
There was hope in the budget that some new scheme would come for farmers. Even if no new scheme came, there was hope of bringing some more crops under the ambit of MSP. It was also expected that there would be some increase in the money received under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Yojana.
Because there has been no change in the amount of the scheme for the last 6 years. There was hope of subsidy on fertilizers and seeds, loans at low interest and waiver of old loans. However, nothing like this happened.
Special scheme for employment
It was expected in the budget that a special scheme would be launched for the employment of youth. However, nothing like this happened. There was talk of creating employment through different schemes, there was talk of increasing employment through data centres, there was talk of content creation in schools, there was talk of some internships and skills but there was no single scheme in which the currently unemployed could be motivated for employment.
Exemption to senior citizens
It was expected in the budget that some insurance scheme would be introduced for senior citizens or concessions would be given in railway tickets. Some new plan will come, but nothing like this happened. TDS deduction for senior citizens also did not change and that too remained the same.
gift to electoral states
The people of those five states where assembly elections were held had the highest expectations in the budget. Especially the people of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were holding out hope. People of Assam, Kerala and Puducherry also expected a special package or special incentive or some kind of direct benefit transfer scheme, but nothing of the sort happened. Siliguri has got the railway corridor.
It has been announced to build a new freight corridor from Dankuni in Bengal to Surat in Gujarat. Tamil Nadu is among the 4 states where ‘Rare Earth Corridor’ will be built. Special schemes have been launched for coconut, cashew and cocoa growers, which will directly benefit the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu. But the kind of schemes which were seen for Bihar, these election states did not get any such scheme.
Also read: Budget 2026: The government opened its treasury for these schemes in Budget 2026, know how much funds each scheme got
