Budget 2024: Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman will present the interim budget 2024 today. The Finance Minister has left the Ministry with the budget ‘Bahi-Khata’.
The interim budget 2024 will be tabled before the country heads for Lok Sabha polls later this year. This will be her sixth Budget as the Finance Minister and last in the second term of the Modi government.
The interim budget will take care of the financial needs of the intervening period until a government is formed after the Lok Sabha polls. A full budget will be presented by the new government.
On Wednesday, the Budget Session of Parliament commenced with President Droupadi Murmu addressing a joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The President, during her speech, said 2023 was a historic year for the country and among other steps, the country kept up the momentum of being the fastest-growing major economy.
“The year 2023 was a historic year for India when it grew the fastest among major economies despite the global crisis. India grew about 7.5 per cent for two consecutive quarters,” she said as quoted by news agency PTI.
The last session before Lok Sabha polls, expected to be held in April-May this year, will have a total of eight sittings spread over 10 days. A day before the session was set to start, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, at an all-party meeting, said the budget session would mainly be devoted to the financial business relating to the interim union budget for 2024-25 and discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address. However, essential legislative and other business may also be taken up during this session. The all-party meeting was attended by 45 leaders from 30 political parties, as per PTI report.
The last full Budget of Modi government 2.0 had proposed to increase capital expenditure outlay by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore in 2023-24, which would be 3.3 percent of the GDP. It was almost three times the outlay in 2019-20. The government had proposed to increase the agricultural credit target to Rs 20 lakh crore with a focus on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries. The agriculture sector of the country has been growing at an average annual growth rate of 4.6 per cent in the last six years.
Like the previous two Union Budgets, the Union Budget 2023-24 was also presented in paperless form. Presenting the Union Budget 2023, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pegged the fiscal deficit target for 2023-24 at 5.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The Finance Minister further said that the government intends to bring the fiscal deficit below 4.5 per cent of GDP by the financial year 2025-26.