New Delhi [India]Feb 1 (ANI): The government on Wednesday presented the annual budget for 2023-24, the last full budget of the Modi government 2.0.
This year’s budget is very important because the next Lok Sabha elections are to be held in the country in April-May 2024.
People had high expectations and the budget seems to have promised to fulfill many of them. The most commonly seen number in a budget document is capital expenditure.
In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the capital expenditure outlay is being increased by 33 per cent for the third consecutive year to Rs 10 lakh crore, which will be 3.3 per cent of GDP.
This would be almost three times the outlay in 2019-20.
“This substantial growth in recent years is central to the government’s efforts to drive growth potential and create jobs, crowd in private investment and provide a cushion against global headwinds,” Sitharaman said.
Presenting the Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the outlay for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), the flagship scheme of the current government, has been increased by 66 per cent to Rs 79,000 crore.
This is a significant increase considering that Sitharaman had proposed an allocation of Rs 48,000 crore for the housing for all initiative of the government in Budget 2022-23.
The allocation for Jal Jeevan Mission has been increased from Rs 60,000 crore to Rs 70,000 crore.
Allocation has been increased for Eklavya Model Residential School, Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of EVs (FAME), North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme and development of pharmaceutical industry.
Following is an infographic that gives the figures allocated under these schemes:
Indian economy is supported by strong macroeconomic fundamentals, there are ample indicators to back this. Be it capital expenditure, asset quality of banks, foreign exchange reserves, GST collections, fiscal consolidation, and convergence of wholesale and retail inflation, the budget document data showed all these indicators on a strong base.
Presenting the Union Budget, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday pegged the fiscal deficit target for 2023-24 at 5.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). In 2022-23, the government pegs the fiscal deficit at 6.4 per cent.
The Finance Minister further said that the government intends to bring down the fiscal deficit below 4.5 per cent of GDP by the financial year 2025-26.
The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on Tuesday said that India’s GDP is expected to grow in the range of 6 to 6.8 per cent in the coming financial year 2023-24. This compares to an estimated 7 per cent this fiscal and 8.7 per cent in 2021-22. (ANI)
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