Centre’s allocations for justice-related schemes fluctuate: Data

India Justice Report 2025-26 reveals declining budget allocations for justice-related schemes, with underutilization of funds in recent years.

The Central government has consistently reduced budget allocations to certain justice-related schemes and projects since 2019, shows the recently released India Justice Report 2025-26.

Data also show that not only have allocations reduced, but also, only a fraction of the envisaged allocations was actually spent on these schemes.

The Modernisation Fund for the State Police Forces was formed to assist special projects and schemes that would upgrade the infrastructure of States’ police as well as Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems.

Chart 1 shows the Budget Estimates (BE), Revised Estimates (RE), and actual expenditure of the Modernisation Fund for the State Police Forces.

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The Centre estimated a budget of almost ₹900 crore for FY19. This declined to around ₹780 crore in BE for FY21. In FY26, it has come down to ₹587.97 crore (BE).

While these figures are for BE, RE show a drastic reduction in allocations. For instance, the ₹780 crore that was budgeted in FY21 was revised to ₹106 crore. Such over-estimations in BE and drastic downward revisions in RE can be seen across most years. In FY25, the allocation for the fund was estimated to be ₹520.51 crore and was revised in the following year to ₹160 crore.