With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to present her ninth Union Budget for FY27 on February 1, more budget-funded programmes to accelerate India’s growth, boost jobs and alleviate poverty are expected.
However, several ambitious proposals from her previous Budget (Union Budget FY26, presented on February 1, 2025) remain unimplemented or only partially operationalised, either awaiting detailed guidelines, or adequate rollout mechanisms.
Also, some initiatives announced in previous budgets have seen limited uptake due to poor response or implementation challenges.
Startups and Fund of Funds
In the 2025-26 Budget, the finance minister announced a new “Fund of Funds” for startups with an expanded scope and a fresh government contribution of Rs 10,000 crore. She noted that Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs) for startups had already received commitments exceeding Rs 91,000 crore, supported by the original Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds established in 2016.
Additionally, she mentioned exploring a dedicated deep tech Fund of Funds to support next-generation startups focused on innovation, R&D, and emerging technologies like AI.
As of now, the new tranche of Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds has not yet been operationalised, pending final guidelines and Cabinet clearance on some aspects.
Agriculture
The minister positioned agriculture as the “first engine” of growth and announced multiple schemes, including the Prime Minister Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (targeting 100 low-productivity districts), Aatmanirbharta in Pulses (a six-year mission for self-reliance), the Makhana Board in Bihar, the National Mission on High Yielding Seeds, the Mission for Cotton Productivity, enhancements to Kisan Credit Card (KCC) credit limits among others.
Out of these schemes, cotton productivity mission, enhanced credit through KCC and mission on high yielding seeds is yet to be implemented, while other schemes have been rolled out across different timelines.
The National Mission on High Yielding Seeds was announced to strengthen the research ecosystem, develop and propagate seeds with high yield, pest resistance, and climate resilience, and ensure commercial availability of over 100 varieties released since July 2024. Again, the mission has not been implemented so far.
Similarly, the Budget speech mentioned a new five-year Mission for Cotton Productivity, with sustainability in cotton farming, and promotion of extra-long staple varieties (which are largely imported as of now) as the key features.
The mission also seeks to provide science and technology support to farmers, and align with the integrated 5F vision (Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign) for the textile sector. The Department of Agricultural Research & Education (DARE) is the nodal department for implementing the Mission, with the Ministry of Textiles as a partner.
This aims to benefit lakhs of cotton farmers, increase incomes, and ensure steady quality supply. As yet, the scheme has not been rolled out.
Enhanced Credit through Kisan Credit Card (KCC)
The loan limit under the Modified Interest Subvention Scheme was raised from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for short-term loans to farmers, fishermen, and dairy farmers (covering about 77 million beneficiaries).
An external evaluation of the interest subvention scheme for agricultural credit, designed to meet farmers’ working capital requirements, has been completed, as mandated for all central schemes before the end of FY26, aligning with the Fifteenth Finance Commission period.
The evaluation report is now under consideration by the Expenditure Finance Committee, with expectations to roll out an increase in short-term credit limits for KCC holders starting from the next fiscal year. However, sources indicated that the current average short-term credit flow per KCC holder stands at around Rs 1.6 lakh.
Employment Linked Incentive
Launched in July 2025, the employment-linked incentive (ELI) scheme has not taken off due to the weak participation from the medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) who are expected to be the main employment creators in the scheme.
The officials said that the lack of awareness and tedious processes are holding back MSMEs to participate in the scheme. The big companies have shown decent response but the smaller ones need handholding from the industry and the government. They are not capable of documentation, etc,” said an official.
With an outlay of Rs 99,446 crore, the ELI scheme was first announced in the budget 2024-25 to facilitate the creation of over 35 million jobs over a two-year period beginning August 2025. The scheme provides one month’s wage (up to Rs 15,000) to the first-time employees in addition to providing incentives to the employers for generating additional jobs.
PM Internship Scheme
Similar to ELI, the PM Internship Scheme (PMIS) has had a rough start with just about 20% candidates accepting the offers (33,300 offers accepted out of 165,000 offers made by companies) in the pilot phase that started in October 2024. The scheme has also been facing high dropouts of nearly 20% due to domicile issues and longer duration of the training (12 months).
Announced in Budget 2024-25, the PMIS has a target to provide internship opportunities to 10 million people in top 500 companies over a five-year period. Though in the third phase of PMIS, the government is mulling a major overhaul including doubling the stipend, revising the age eligibility criteria, inclusion of a wider set of companies, and reducing the training tenure in specific cases.