Now Reading: Punjab lacks climate budget despite Rs 13,000 crore flood losses
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Punjab lacks climate budget despite Rs 13,000 crore flood losses
The Story in Brief
The Story in Brief
The 2025 floods in Punjab affected nearly four lakh people, claimed 48 lives and caused losses exceeding Rs 13,000 crore, according to a guest column in Hindustan Times. The state’s budget for 2026-27 has a total outlay of Rs 2,60,437 crore, but Punjab does not publish a standalone climate budget statement unlike Odisha, Bihar, Kerala and Assam.
Explicit climate adaptation initiatives, including Rs 1,300 crore for climate-resilient horticulture and Rs 600 crore for crop residue management, amount to about Rs 1,940 crore, only 1.2% of net expenditure. The column notes that climate finance is urgent as Punjab’s groundwater development has crossed 170%, making it one of India’s most over-exploited aquifer systems.
The Indian Opinion
The narrative that Punjab is ignoring climate change is one-sided, the state has allocated Rs 1,940 crore to climate-linked programmes and is preparing a green budgeting action plan. But the real test is whether it will publish a separate climate budget statement next year, making expenditure measurable and accountable. Without that, even well-intentioned spending risks being invisible and ineffective.
Source: hindustantimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Methodology and corrections.
Ashin Xavier: interesting
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