Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (March 11, 2025) announced a corpus of ₹500 crore to establish a contingency fund in strife-torn Manipur.
“We are providing all possible financial assistance for the faster recovery of the Manipur economy,” she said replying to a discussion on ‘The Manipur Appropriation Bill, 2025’ and ‘The Manipur Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 2025’ in the Lok Sabha. Both Bills were passed by voice vote.
Asserting that the overall law and order situation had improved in the northeastern State, except for some sporadic incidents, Ms. Sitharaman said all financial support would be provided to Manipur for economic development.
“…with the collective effort of both the Centre and the State government, there has been an improvement in overall law and order situation in the State, to a large extent, except for some sporadic (incidents),” the Finance Minister said, adding that arms and ammunition looted were being recovered.
She said ₹400 crore had been provided for operation of relief camps in Manipur and under the Prime Ministers’ Awas Yojana (PMAY) 7,000 houses had been approved to provide housing for those who were displaced.
Manipur is currently under the President’s Rule. Consequent to the proclamation issued under Article 356 of the Constitution last month, the powers of the Legislature of the State are exercisable by or under the authority of Parliament.
The Finance Minister had tabled the Manipur budget for 2025-26 in the Parliament on Monday envisaging an expenditure of ₹35,103.90 crore, up from ₹32,656.81 crore in the current financial year.
According to the documents, the capital outlay has been increased by 19% to ₹7,773 crore over the current financial year ending March 2025.
Earlier participating in the discussion, Opposition parties questioned the Union government’s handling of the situation in Manipur.
The MPs found fault with the allocations in the State budget as it “did not reflect” the situation on the ground where hundreds were killed and around 60,000 people rendered homeless. The Manipur budget was tabled in Parliament on Monday, as the State is under President’s Rule.
A Bimol Akoijam, Congress MP from Inner Manipur, said he was “almost” indifferent to whether the Prime Minister visited the State or not and it did not matter anymore. “But the rest of the country should know that there is no visa issue for the Prime Minister to visit Manipur. He may go to Ukraine and talk about peace and his own citizens are being slaughtered and more than 60,000 people are rendered homeless”.
“You have witnessed a crisis for 21 months. Does the budget reflect it?. We are asking for additional resources from the federal government. We do not get anything,” Mr. Akoijam said.
He claimed that Manipur had not got the attention it deserved on financial terms and had it been Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, it would have been reflected in the budget.
Outer Manipur MP Alfred Kan-Ngam Arthur said the Budget did not reflect the concerns of 60,000 displaced people or the damages to the tune of ₹20,000 crore incurred by the State.
Samajwadi Party’s Neeraj Maurya said “the Prime Minister has gone to Mauritius, he should visit Manipur also”.
