The Union Budget 2024 infuses in itself everything that would lead India to the path of becoming ‘Viksit Bharat’, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said as she answered the questions raised by the Opposition INDIA bloc in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
“This Budget draws upon what was mentioned in Interim Budget. It infuses itself into everything said in February 2024,” Sitharaman said.
The FM said that this Budget seeks to consolidate the earlier accomplishments and outlines measures to overcome challenges.
“Core elements of social inclusivity and geographical inclusivity has been highlighted in the Budget,” Sitharaman said further. “We are taking a whole of nation approach to meet the aspirations of people. The expenditure of this govt has grown exponentially, at Rs 48 lakh cr in FY25.”
“One feature which has marked India’s growth story is the capex,” Sitharaman said on capex, “this has enabled us to come out of Covid and has yielded us results to maintain consistent, high growth rate. Rs 11.11 lakh cr has been allocated for Capex. Budgeted Capex is now almost 3.3 times the capex seen in 2019-20. The effective capex is pegged at Rs 15.02 lakh cr.” Sitharaman said.
“Promissed in FY22 that the govt will bring Fiscal deficit to below 4.5% by FY26. From Covid-era high, we have kept in touch to the projection and complying to the target given by us, Sitharaman said while stating that the government is keeping its word on fiscal consolidation.
“We provided Rs 17,000 cr in the Union Budget this year. This includes Rs 12k cr towards financing the J&K police to give them more flexibility to spend for developmental activities,” Sitharaman said.
Speaking about the progress Jammu and Kashmir has made, Sitharaman said that public finances of J&K are back on the rails, they can focus on developmental activities much more than ever before.
“Unemployment rate has come down for J&K to 5.7% in FY22 to 4.4% in FY23,” said Sitharaman.
