Mumbai, Feb. 3 -- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a Rs 11.21 lakh crore capital expenditure (capex) target for the fiscal year 2026 during her budget presentation on Saturday. This announcement comes despite the government acknowledging a significant shortfall in meeting the current fiscal year's capex goal.

While the FY25 budget allocated Rs 11.1 lakh crore for capex, revised estimates project spending of only Rs 10.18 lakh crore, a shortfall of approximately Rs 93,000 crore. The revised estimate for the FY25 fiscal deficit stands at 4.8% of GDP. Sitharaman explained that the shortfall stemmed from the general election cycle, which effectively paused project implementation for two to three months.

Despite the current year'...