The insights

Where it actually went

Between 2012-13 and 2026-27 the Union budget more than tripled in rupees, so almost every line went up and a chart of rupees says only that things got bigger. A share is the one view where something has to fall for something else to rise. Education’s slice went from 4.68% to 2.60%. Road transport went from 1.43% to 5.79%.

Priorities, as revealed by arithmetic

What was chosen over what

Road Transport & Highways

2012-131.43%

2026-275.79%

+4.36 pp4.0× its old share

Home Affairs

2012-133.39%

2026-274.77%

+1.39 pp1.4× its old share

Health & Family Welfare

2012-131.78%

2026-271.99%

+0.21 pp1.1× its old share

Rural Development

2012-133.56%

2026-273.68%

+0.13 pp1.0× its old share

Education

2012-134.68%

2026-272.60%

-2.08 pp44% smaller share

Defence

2012-1317.96%

2026-2714.67%

-3.29 pp18% smaller share

Share of total Union expenditure. 2012-13 figures are actuals; 2026-27 is a Budget Estimate, so the last bar is what the government intends to spend rather than what it has spent. Shares are computed from nominal rupees on purpose — a share is a ratio inside one year, so inflation cancels out of both halves. 2014-15 is excluded throughout: scheme money was reclassified out of ministry demands that year, so its figures measure something narrower. Source: ministry-wise expenditure.

Money in, and what is still true

The spending is not the outcome

Union spending, 2012-13–2025-26₹11.89 lakh croreadded up in constant 2025-26 rupees, across 11 years with comparable figures

And this is still true23.1% of sanctioned posts are emptyOf 51,96,597 sanctioned posts for elementary school teachers, 11,97,893 were created, funded and left unfilled.State-level posts · as on 2020-03-31 · sourceThe most recent state-wise figures the Ministry of Education has released in machine-readable form are for 2019-20, tabled in a Rajya Sabha reply in 2023. Treat this as the last published position, not as today’s.

Union spending, 2012-13–2025-26₹8.47 lakh croreadded up in constant 2025-26 rupees, across 11 years with comparable figures

And this is still true67.9% of sanctioned posts are emptyOf 13,637 sanctioned posts for specialist doctors at rural community health centres, 9,266 were created, funded and left unfilled.State-level posts · as on 2021-03-31 · sourceThis is 2020-21 data (as on 31 March 2021), the most recent edition this site could retrieve — the Ministry's own current site 404s the historical path, and the Wayback Machine has no later capture. A newer edition may exist; it was not reachable.

Union spending, 2012-13–2025-26₹18.35 lakh croreadded up in constant 2025-26 rupees, across 11 years with comparable figures

And this is still true21.4% of sanctioned posts are emptyOf 27,22,669 sanctioned posts for state police, 5,81,364 were created, funded and left unfilled.State-level posts · as on 2023-01-01 · source

These two columns are not a subtraction. The posts counted on the right are employed by states and courts, not by the Union, so the money on the left was never what was supposed to fill them — health and education are largely State subjects, and the Union share is a fraction of the combined total. Read together they say something narrower and harder to dismiss: sustained spending at one level of government does not by itself staff the level that delivers the service. Cumulative figures exclude 2014-15, whose basis differs, and years after 2025-26, which have no published price index. Spending source: ministry-wise expenditure.

Where this goes next

The parts of the answer that live elsewhere

A budget line can also fall short without any of this showing up in a share. It can be announced and then revised away inside the same year — 1,31,114src crore was, across 12 schemes, in 2025-26 alone. It can be voted in full and then not staffed, which is what the empty chair counts. And it can simply never reach the target the government set for itself, which is what the board opens with.