India's Union Budget is presented to Parliament every February 1st. The Finance Minister reads a speech. The headlines focus on income tax slabs and a handful of flagship schemes. The actual document — all 2,000+ pages of it — goes largely unread.
This post is an attempt to read it.
The shape of the budget
The Union Government will spend ₹53.47 lakh crore in FY 2026-27. To put that in context: it is roughly equal to the GDP of a mid-sized European country. Every rupee of it comes from taxes, non-tax revenue, or borrowing.
Of that ₹53.47 lakh crore:
- ₹15.26 lakh crore goes directly to states as their constitutional share of central taxes
- ₹13.35 lakh crore goes to pay interest on accumulated debt
- ₹6.81 lakh crore goes to defence
- The remaining ₹18 lakh crore funds everything else: infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, direct transfers
The three largest line items — state transfers, interest, and central schemes — together consume 59 paise of every rupee before any discretionary decision is made.
Where the money comes from
Of every rupee the government controls:
- 21 paise comes from income tax
- 18 paise from corporation tax
- 15 paise from GST
- 24 paise is borrowed
That borrowing figure is the one that compounds. India has run a fiscal deficit every year since independence. The interest on accumulated borrowing — ₹13.35 lakh crore — is now the single largest line item in the budget, ahead of defence, ahead of all subsidies combined.
The states' share
The Sixteenth Finance Commission fixed the states' share of central taxes at 41% of the divisible pool. The formula for distributing that 41% among states weighs income distance most heavily (45%), then population (15%), area (15%), demographic performance (12.5%), forest cover (10%), and tax effort (2.5%).
The result: Uttar Pradesh gets 17.6% of the pool, because it has both the largest population and a well-below-average per-capita income. Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have higher incomes and lower population growth, get less than their contribution to the pool. This redistribution is constitutionally mandated, not discretionary. It is a genuine subsidy from richer to poorer states, built into the architecture of Indian federalism.
The utilisation problem
Budget announcements are promises. Revised estimates are the reckoning.
In FY 2025-26, the Jal Jeevan Mission — which promises a tap connection to every rural household — spent 25% of its allocation. PMAY-Urban 2.0, which promises affordable urban housing, spent 8.57%. These are not rounding errors. They are structural.
The contrast: MGNREGA spent 100% of its allocation. PM-KISAN spent 100%. Both are demand-driven cash transfers with minimal execution barriers. JJM and PMAY require land acquisition, contractor mobilisation, state government capacity, and physical construction. The gap between announcement and delivery is where announced ambition meets the limits of district-level capacity.
What this site does
Every number on this dashboard traces to an official document. The sources are listed beneath every chart. Where the trail ends — classified defence procurement, PM-CARES, off-budget liabilities — we say so explicitly.
The goal is not criticism. It is legibility.
Data from Union Budget 2026-27 documents, indiabudget.gov.in. All figures are Budget Estimates.