How a dad’s lament jolted FM into action on girls’ hostels

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recounted a touching personal encounter that jolted her to budget for girls’ hostels in STEM and medical colleges.

In a first-of-its-kind post-budget interaction with around 30 college students, she said, “I met a father recently who said his daughter qualified for a premier institute, but he couldn’t send her because he couldn’t afford a safe place for her to stay nearby. That stayed with me.”




“A girl’s merit should never be defeated by the lack of a hostel room. That is why this budget makes it a mission to have a hostel in every district — to ensure that your ‘merit’ has a home,” Sitharaman added, underlining the link between infrastructure and equal opportunity.

Instead of heading to television studios and newsrooms post-budget presentation, her team reached out to universities to bring together students for direct engagement. “I would like to know from you what the experience of sitting in Parliament and listening to a Budget was like,” the FM asked the group during an interaction at Kartavya Bhawan-1.

The students had earlier watched the Budget presentation from the Lok Sabha Gallery before visiting the finance ministry office, where senior officials briefed them on policy formulation and institutional processes.

Fielding questions on both the Budget and her own journey as finance minister, Sitharaman said that presenting the budget was an act of “constitutional accountability”, saying it comes with the humility of knowing policy choices shape the lives of nearly 1.4 billion people. The minister also outlined the four pillars guiding the exercise — the poor, youth, farmers, and women.

When a student asked about how she handles the pressure of high-stakes numbers, Sitharaman reframed the process beyond spreadsheets. “The budget is not just about numbers; it is about the trust of the people,” she said, adding, “When I sit to finalise the speech, I don’t see just figures on a paper; I see the face of the common citizen and the aspirations of the Indian youth.”

She added “true equality is not just about handouts; it’s about creating a level-playing field where a student from a remote village has the same digital and educational access as one in a metro”. She said, “The Budget is a sacred document of govt’s intent. By coming here and seeing it live, you are witnessing democracy in its most transparent form.”

She also spoke about Halwa Ceremony, describing it as the point where the team moves from policymaking into a “lock-in” phase, becoming a close-knit family working in isolation for the nation.