Tamil Nadu: Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker Appavu on Saturday announced that Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu will present the State Interim Budget for 2026–27 in the Legislative Assembly on February 17.

On the same day, the Interim Financial Statement for the financial year 2026–27 will also be tabled by the Minister for Finance and Environment and Climate Change.

Further, on February 20, the Assembly will take up the Vote-on-Account (Interim) Demands for Grants for 2026–27 and the Supplementary Demands for Grants for additional expenditure in 2025–26, in accordance with Assembly Rule 189.

Earlier, Thennarasu criticised the Union Budget 2026–27, stating that it had “greatly disappointed” the people of Tamil Nadu due to the absence of clear announcements for key sectors. In a post on social media following the budget presentation by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he said the state’s long-standing demands had once again been ignored.

“The 2026 Union Budget has caused great disappointment among the people of Tamil Nadu. There were no clear announcements for key sectors such as basic infrastructure development, employment, education, healthcare, and industrial investment that are essential for the state's growth. The long-standing and legitimate demands consistently raised by the Tamil people have once again been ignored,” Thennarasu said.

The Union Budget 2026–27, presented on February 1, was Nirmala Sitharaman’s ninth consecutive budget. In her speech, she announced central support for a rare-earth minerals corridor in Tamil Nadu, along with similar corridors in Odisha, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. She also proposed seven high-speed railway corridors, including the Chennai–Hyderabad and Chennai–Bengaluru routes.

ANI