New Delhi, Feb 1: Presenting the Mini Budget ahead of general elections, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the report card of Modi government in the last 10 years and refrained from making any major announcements while keeping the tax rates unchanged.
The interim Budget continued government focus on capital expenditure (capex) to boost economic growth and create jobs.
Sitharaman appeared confident of winning the next Lok Sabha polls stating that based on its ‘stupendous' work, people will bless the government again with a resounding mandate.
“In the full budget in July, our government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of Viksit Bharat,” she said.
Apart from raising capex for 2024-25 by 11.1% to Rs 11.11 lakh crore, she kept Budget focus on four major ‘castes' namely ‘Garib' (Poor), ‘Mahilayen' (Women), ‘Yuva' (Youth) and ‘Annadata'(Farmer).
Sitharaman raised the target for Lakhpati Didi (women earning over Rs 1 lakh per year) from 2 crore to 3 crore. She also announced a rooftop solarization scheme to enable one crore households to get upto 300 units of free electricity every month.
The Minister also proposed to create a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore to boost private investment in sunrise technologies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the Budget as inclusive and innovative, stating that it will empower all four pillars of ‘Viksit Bharat' — youth, the poor, women, and farmers.
“This Budget carries the guarantee of strengthening the foundation of ‘Viksit Bharat' by 2047. …This Budget reflects Bharat's young aspirations. Two important decisions have been taken in the Budget. A fund of Rs 1 lakh crore has been announced for research and innovation. There has also been an announcement in the Budget to expand the tax exemption for start-ups,” he further said.
Opposition parties, however, termed the pre-election Budget as disappointing and slammed the government over unemployment, price rise and other issues facing the common man.
“The FM (Finance Minister Sitharaman) spoke about youth. She did not speak about unemployment. …. The FM did not acknowledge the rampant unemployment and did not utter a word on how the government intended to address the problem. By deliberate neglect over the last 10 years, the government has destroyed the demographic dividend story and dashed the hopes of millions of youth and their families,” said senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued a statement saying that despite the tall claims made by the Finance Minister about the state of India's economy, the interim Union Budget for 2024-25 revealed the grim economic situation confronting India's working people.
“This interim budget totally exposes the hollowness of the bombastic claims of the Modi propaganda machine of real social justice' incorporating working people as `partners in growth etc. This budget carries forward the vicious `development model' of the Modi government which squeezes the livelihood of the vast majority of India's working people to favour the maximization of profits for the few,” the party said.
During her Budget speech, Sitharaman said that a ‘white paper' will be laid on the table of the House comparing the state of the economy where it was during the UPA government and where it is now.
She noted that the Indian economy has witnessed profound positive transformation in the last 10 years and people are now looking ahead to the future with hope and optimism.
