Nirmala Sitharaman chairs pre-Budget meeting with States/UTs in Jaisalmer

New Delhi [India], December 20 : As part of the pre-Budget consultations, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday chaired a meeting with States and Union Territories in Jaisalmer.
Along with Union Minister for State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, the meeting was also attended by Chief Ministers of Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Odisha; Deputy Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana; the Finance Ministers of States/UTs.
Secretaries of Departments of Economic Affairs and Expenditure, and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance were also present during the meeting.
Ministers from states and UTs have gathered in Jaisalmer for the GST Council meeting scheduled for Saturday.
The finance minister has so far held a series of meetings with various stakeholders, including with MSMEs, farmers' associations, and economists.
The Finance Ministry conducts several pre-Budget consultation meetings annually with experts, industry leaders, economists, and state officials. The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for the next financial year has already begun.
As is the convention, the Budget for 2025-26 will be tabled on February 1, 2025.
The 2025-26 Budget will mark Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's eighth. All eyes will be on the key announcements and the government's forward-looking economic guidance for the remainder of the Modi 3.0 tenure.