New Delhi: Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Union Budget 2024-2025 in Parliament today. Addressing the nation with a forward-looking vision, the minister emphasised the transformative potential for India’s tech-savvy youth. She announced the establishment of a substantial corpus amounting to one lakh crore rupees, supported by a fifty-year interest-free loan.
The financial initiative is strategically designed to offer long-term financing or refinancing opportunities with extended tenors and minimal interest rates. She highlighted the role of this corpus in fostering innovation. “This will also encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains,” she said.
The minister announced that India’s real GDP is projected to experience a growth of 7.3% in the fiscal year 2023-24. The capital expenditure outlay for the next year is set to witness an 11.1% increase, reaching a substantial Rs 11,11,111 crore, equivalent to 3.4% of the GDP. Simultaneously, the fiscal deficit for 2024-25 is estimated to be 5.1% of the GDP.
The government’s primary focus remains on uplifting “the poor, women, youth, and farmers.” Sitharaman said that the government is actively pursuing an all-round, all-pervasive and all-inclusive approach to development.
The interim budget 2024 included a series of announcements and strategies providing insight into the direction and development approach for making India a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India) by 2047.
Acknowledging the importance of the Eastern region, the government pledges to pay utmost attention to making it a powerful driver of India’s overall growth.
A high-powered committee is also set to be formed to extensively consider the challenges arising from rapid population growth and demographic changes.
As a relief for taxpayers, no changes in tax rates are proposed in the Interim Budget 2024. Approximately one crore taxpayers are expected to benefit from the withdrawal of certain petty and disputed direct tax demands.
Lastly, Sitharaman said that the government will present a white paper on the Indian economy, offering insights into ‘where we were then till 2014 and where we are now, only for the purpose of drawing lessons from the mismanagement of those years.’
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