The expenditure on account of interest payments, payment of salaries/wages, pensions and subsidies continues to account for a major chunk of the State’s expenditure.

The State has incurred ₹1.1 lakh crore on interest payments, salaries/wages, pensions and subsidy, primarily for supply of free power to agriculture sector, during the financial year 2025-26 as can be seen from the provisional data released by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. This is against the total revenue receipts including borrowings of ₹2.6 lakh crore.

Of these, interest payment accounted for ₹29,679 crore, salaries/wages (₹47,400 crore), pensions (₹19,371 crore) and subsidy (₹14,549). Except for subsidy which was budgeted at ₹16,583 crore for the year, expenditure on the remaining three heads exceeded the budget estimates significantly indicating the tight financial situation which the State is facing.

Interest payments for instance was estimated at ₹19,639 crore for the year, but the State ended up remitting ₹29,679 crore, over ₹10,000 crore more than the budget estimates at the end of the year. The same is the case with payment of pensions, including social security pensions which crossed ₹19,000 crore as against the estimated ₹13,109 crore.

The State faced a similar situation during the financial year 2024-25 when it had spent ₹26,688 crore as interest (₹ 17,729 crore budget estimates), salaries/wages ₹42,245 crore (₹40,041 crore BE), pensions ₹16,950 crore (₹11,641 crore BE) and subsidy ₹11,508 crore (Rs. 16,242 crore BE).

Interestingly, the State registered ₹9,881 crore rise in the form of non-tax revenue in March alone as compared with ₹9,105 crore registered during the first 11 months. Senior officials termed this as book adjustment in that amounts deposited in the name of corporations or State run bodies would be accumulated to the non-tax revenue if they remained unspent or not fully spent.