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Committed to comprehensive achievement of social justice, says FM Sitharaman
The government is working to make India a Viksit Bharat the Minister said while presenting the Interim Budget for 2024-25.
FM Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Interim Budget for 2024-25 / Income Tax India (X)
Affirming that the economy of India witnessed growth in the last decade and that the country is better off in the “Modi decade,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman underlined that the accent of the present government has been on transparency and benefits for all.
“We expect our government will be blessed again by the people with a resounding mandate," the Finance Minister said, while presenting the Interim Budget for 2024-25. With the country due to witness general elections in April/May, this year’s budget was a Vote-on-Account.
Staying with the tradition of no new sops, Sitharaman touched on the government’s commitment to the true and comprehensive achievement of social justice even while saying that the government will launch a new housing scheme for the middle class.
The government is working to make India a Viksit Bharat, the vision to transform as a fully developed nation, by 2047, the Minister said.
The revised fiscal deficit estimated for FY24 has been put at 5.8 percent of the GDP and the deficit for FY25 at 5.1 percent, or lower than the market expectations of 5.3 to 5.4 percent. She also revealed that there are no proposals to tinker with the current direct and indirect tax structures for both the old and new regimes.
Our vision for #ViksitBharat is that of prosperous Bharat, in harmony with nature, with modern infrastructure and providing opportunities for all to reach their potential
— PIB India (@PIB_India) February 1, 2024
Next five years will be years of unprecedented development and golden moments to realize the goal of… pic.twitter.com/0h2SGGkLHC
The first full-time woman finance minister presented her sixth straight budget—five regular and one interim—since the current one is seen as a vote-on-account that gives the government power to spend some money until a new dispensation comes into effect. India is expected to go for General Elections sometime in April/ May with a new government in place by June/July.
Sitharaman equaled the record set by the former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who as Finance Minister had presented five annual and one interim budget between 1959 and 1964. But the record of the most number of budgets presented continues to be held by Desai at 10.
In her sixth presentation, Sitharaman pipped the earlier records of Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P. Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha who had five budgets in their tow consecutively.
What used to be an annual ritual that began at 5 pm on the last day of February, the NDA government under finance minister Yashwant Sinha changed the timing to 11 am in 1999; and in 2017 former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley moved the date to 1st of February.
The Union Budget has undergone one other major change as well with the finance minister getting rid of the “briefcase” with a red “Bahi Khata” or a cloth ledger in 2019. In 2021, Sitharaman signaled a new beginning by making her presentation completely paperless, using a “Made in India” tablet.
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