Bhubaneswar, January 2: BJD president and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik on Sunday expressed disappointment over the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, saying the ‘State has received very little’ from the Central Government’s allocations.
Taking to ‘X’, the former Chief Minister said the budget has offered no noteworthy benefits to #Odisha and its people.
“I express my disappointment on the #Budget2026 presented today by the Union Government. The budget has offered no noteworthy benefits to #Odisha and its people,” wrote Patnaik.
“The anticipation from the people of Odisha was that the double engine government would offer a growth momentum with focus on infrastructure, job creation and additional allocation which is due to the state. The state has received very little,” he wrote.
However, he welcomed the proposal to establish the Rare Earth Corridor in Odisha.
“Odisha is the leading producer of several key minerals and will always contribute to nation building through its rich resources. It has again been announced to have National Waterways to connect mineral rich areas and industrial centres to the Ports. But this is a decade old proposal without any progress on the ground,” Patnaik said.
Expressing disappointment over Odisha not being featured in the High-Speed Rail corridor, Patnaik wrote, “It is a huge disappointment for the people of Odisha that the announcement to develop seven High-Speed Rail corridors between cities as ‘growth connectors’ does not feature Odisha. Odisha BJP nipped the #BhubaneswarMetro project earlier and the neglect of people’s needs continues as usual.”
“And it’s quite baffling that the Tourism centric Scheme for Development of Buddhist Circuits has completely skipped Odisha despite having several very important Buddhist sites including our Diamond Triangle,” he added.
“As seen from the entirety of the Union Budget, Odisha is getting allocations only for taking its natural resources away and completely ignored when it comes to resource allocation for benefit of people of the State. It’s time the State BJP Govt takes responsibility for people of Odisha and ensure they get their rightful dues from centre. Odisha and its people deserve more and better from the Union Budget,” Patnaik further said.
