New Delhi: While the Union Budget 2025-26 had been criticised at the time for not highlighting social sector spending enough and for under-funding key welfare schemes, the Union Budget 2026-27 documents have revealed that even the amounts promised were not spent by the Union government.The Wire analysed numbers put out for 20 social sector schemes, to see whether the government was, in fact, putting its money where its mouth is.Revised estimates for financial year 2025-26 exceed the budget estimates for only two schemes: the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and MGNREGA. This is striking because one of these – the MGNREGA – has in fact been discontinued. While the government has set aside a larger budget for the Bill it brought in to replace the previous employment guarantee (Rs 95,692 crore has been set aside for the VB G RAM G Scheme), rights activists have pointed out that the new scheme is different in some very important ways. Instead of being universal, for instance, it gives the Union government the power to ‘notify’ areas where the scheme will be implemented. Given the tenuous relationship the Modi government shares with opposition-ruled states, it is not surprising that this has given rise to serious concerns.Several experts have pointed out that the Narendra Modi regime has not prioritised the social sector, and spending on this key area has stagnated. The Union Budget 2026-27 presented on Sunday highlights that this trend is not only likely to continue but might even worsen, with several schemes showing a big difference on what the Union government set out to spend and what it actually did.For one scheme analysed, PM-Kisan, the budget estimates matched the revised estimates exactly. For the remaining 17 schemes, however, the Union government did not end up sending what it said it would; in some cases, the margin between the budget estimates and revised estimates is extremely wide.Some of these stand out to those following various infrastructure crises plaguing the nation. The Jal Jeevan Mission, for instance, launched by Modi himself in 2019 to provide safe tap water access to all rural Indians, was supposed to see a spend of Rs 67,000 crore. Instead, the revised estimates suggest the government spent only Rs 17,000 crore on the scheme meant to change millions of lives. Recent events in Indore have gone to show just how important safe tap water access is, yet it does not appear to have been a priority.Spending on the Union government’s housing scheme – both rural and urban – also failed to live up to promises. This despite the fact that the Modi regime launched a “2.0” version of the PMAY-Urban in 2024. Budget estimates exceeded revised estimates by Rs 19,794 crore for PMAY-Urban, Rs 3,200 crore for PMAY-Urban 2.0, and Rs 22,332 crore in PMAY-Rural.The fact that the Union government has not been spending what it promised on social schemes has not gone unnoticed. Economists Jayati Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar pointed out recently that the increase India has seen in social spending over the last decades has been powered by state governments, despite reduced shares of transfers from the Union government.The Modi government may be keen to claim it takes welfare spending seriously, but the numbers it released today will bring those claims into serious question.