2025 Union Budget: Disappointment for Telangana, says KTR

Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) remarked the 2025 Union Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, February 1, has very little to offer to Telangana.

Sitharaman presented her eighth consecutive Union budget. This is also the 14th consecutive budget under the Modi rule.

In an X post, KTR said that the budget was a disappointment to the people of Telangana and hopes of fulfilling pending promises by the Union government continued to remain unfulfilled.

“Telangana couldn’t secure any special assistance beyond the mandatory finance devolutions and central grants,” his X post read.

KTR criticized the finance minister for focussing the budget to appease the people of Delhi, where Assembly elections are due to take place in a week.

“The budget appears to have focused more on the upcoming Delhi and Bihar elections rather than taking a pan-India approach,” KTR said.

He further said that the budget failed to honour the AP Reorganization Act, 2014, by not allocating funds for the Tribal University.

“It is unfortunate that 8+8 has once again amounted to ZERO in Telangana,” he said.

2025 Union Budget: What is cheaper, what will burn your pockets

In a relief to the salaried middle class, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that annual income of up to Rs 12 lakh would be exempt from IT under the new income tax regime.

While some items have become cheaper, some have experienced a price rise. Let’s look at the items that are now cheaper and those that are now costlier.

What is cheaper?

• The budget stated that 36 life-saving drugs would be fully exempted from basic customs duties. This includes drugs that treat cancer, chronic disease medicines and so on.
• Sitharaman has announced the price reduction in basic customs duty (BCD) of electronic goods like LED/LCD TVs to 5 per cent.
• Scraps of lithium-ion battery, lead, Zinc, Cobalt powder waste and 12 other minerals have also been exempted from BCD.
• The Budget has exempted 35 additional goods for electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing and 28 additional goods for mobile phone battery.
• Frozen Fish Paste (Surimi) which earlier had a custom duty of 30 per cent for the purpose of manufactured export has been reduced to 5 per cent.
• Synthetic flavouring essences.
• Leather jackets, belts and shoes.
• Raw materials used for manufacturing ships are now exempted from BCD for an additional 10 years.
• Marines products.

What is costlier?

Interactive flat panel display (IFPD). An IFPD is a large touchscreen display designed for interactive collaboration, presentations, and digital whiteboarding.

It is commonly used in classrooms, boardrooms, and conference settings as a modern replacement for traditional whiteboards, projectors, and interactive whiteboards.

Knitted fabrics. For example, T-shirts, salwar kameez, dresses, leggings, bedsheets, curtains, sweaters, hoodies, winter jackets, Gym wear, wedding dresses, tracksuits home decor like bedsheets, curtains, cushions etc.