Six Times the Investment: Why J&K’s Budget Builds and PoJK’s Doesn’t

Budgets reveal what governments truly intend. Jammu and Kashmir spends nearly four times as much on each resident as Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and it invests more than six times as much in building for the future.

In February 2026, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah presented a ₹1,13,767-crore budget to Jammu and Kashmir's elected Assembly, worth about $12 billion. Four months later, the finance minister of Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) unveiled a Rs 286-billion budget and called it the largest in the territory's history. At current exchange rates of about ₹95 and Rs 277 to the dollar, it comes to about $1.03 billion, less than a tenth of Jammu and Kashmir's.

Spending That Builds

Divide each budget by the people it serves, and the gap becomes impossible to ignore. Jammu and Kashmir plans to spend about $860 on each of its 13.9 million residents. PoJK will spend about $235 on each of its 4.39 million.

The quality of that spending differs just as sharply. Jammu and Kashmir has budgeted ₹25,236 crore for capital outlay in 2026–27, about $190 for every resident, for roads, power, hospitals and schools. PoJK set aside just Rs 36 billion for development and Rs 250 billion for non-development costs such as salaries and pensions. That leaves roughly $30 per resident for anything new. PoJK had budgeted Rs 49 billion for development only a year earlier, so its "record" budget actually cuts development by more than a quarter.

New Delhi, meanwhile, stands firmly behind Jammu and Kashmir. The Union Budget for 2026–27 allocates ₹43,290 crore to the Union Territory, about ₹2,000 crore more than the previous year's revised figure. The Union Territory's own budget extends the free public transport that women have enjoyed since April 2025 to people with disabilities, and it gives the poorest families six free gas cylinders a year.

An Economy on the Rise

Jammu and Kashmir backs its spending with real growth. Its economy reached ₹2.86 lakh crore in 2025–26 and grew 5.82 per cent in real terms. The government projects ₹3,15,822 crore for 2026–27, a rise of 9.5 per cent, and expects a revenue surplus equal to 3 per cent of output. Agriculture receives ₹1,878 crore, and the Holistic Agriculture Development Programme aims to create 2.87 lakh jobs on farms and in orchards.

Household incomes are climbing faster than in many richer neighbours. Per capita income in Jammu and Kashmir grew at 8.81 per cent a year between 2019–20 and 2024–25, ahead of Punjab, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Inflation fell from 4.5 per cent to 3.8 per cent in 2025, easing the pressure on family budgets.

Investors and Visitors Arrive

Capital has noticed. Jammu and Kashmir attracted about ₹18,000 crore of investment between 2016–17 and 2025–26, against roughly ₹8,000 crore in all the decades before. The Union Territory earned a "Top Achiever" ranking in India's national ease-of-doing-business assessment.

Visitors have followed. Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2.35 crore tourist visits in 2024, more than seven times PoJK's 3.21 million. Young people are building businesses too: self-employment schemes have helped create 40,778 enterprises employing 1.16 lakh people, and unemployment fell from 6.7 per cent in 2019–20 to 6.1 per cent in 2023–24.

PoJK: No Figures, No Jobs

PoJK cannot even tell its own people how its economy is doing. Its official statistical yearbook contains no estimate of gross domestic product. The same yearbook records unemployment of 9.6 per cent, and 19.1 per cent among women. Even PoJK's rivers earn it little: Islamabad paid the territory just Rs 712 million in water use charges in 2021–22 for the power its dams generate.

The territory's rulers have looked after themselves first. In 2025, protesters demanded an end to elite privileges, and the October deal that ended their shutdown promised to cap the cabinet at 20 ministers. The government has stalled on that promise. When flour and electricity prices drove residents onto the streets in 2024, Islamabad had to buy calm with a Rs 23 billion subsidy.

Gilgit-Baltistan's Begging Bowl

Gilgit-Baltistan lives hand to mouth. In July 2026, its government presented a Rs 20.48-billion stopgap budget covering a single quarter. It asked Islamabad for Rs 258.95 billion for the year, but Islamabad allocated Rs 158.54 billion, a shortfall of about Rs 100 billion. The region's previous full budget already carried a Rs 6-billion deficit.

Two Ledgers, Two Destinies

Numbers in a budget become teachers in classrooms, nurses in wards and roads through mountains. Jammu and Kashmir's ledger shows a government that invests, grows and draws in capital and visitors. PoJK's ledger shows a territory that pays its officials, cuts its development and waits for Islamabad's handouts. The money tells the story that slogans cannot hide.