Sitharaman presents interim budget with focus on poor, women, youth, farmers; opposition says it lacks accountability, vision

New Delhi [India], February 1 : The government presented the interim budget for 2024-2025 in Parliament on Thursday with focus on economic policies that foster growth, facilitate inclusive development, improve productivity, create opportunities for various sections while noting that it will pay utmost attention to eastern region including states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal to make them growth engines as part of goal to make India a developed country by 2047.
No change was proposed in the tax rates in the interim budget with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing that the government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population and that it will present a white paper on the economic performance of 10 years of BJP-led government compared to previous 10 years of Congress-led UPA government.
This was the last budget of the Modi government in its second term with Lok Sabha polls expected in April-May this year. Sitharaman, who presented her sixth budget in Lok Sabha, expressed confidence of BJP-led NDA coming to power again.
"In the full budget in July, our Government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of 'Viksit Bharat'," she said.
In his remarks following the interim budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was "an inclusive and innovative budget."
"This budget carries the confidence of continuity. It will empower all pillars of developed India - the youth, the poor, women, and farmers," he said.
Sitharaman said in her speech that the government is focusing on welfare of the poor, women, youth and farmers.
"As our Prime Minister firmly believes, we need to focus on four major castes. They are, 'garib' (poor), 'mahilayen' (women), 'yuva' (youth) and 'annadata' (farmer). Their needs, their aspirations, and their welfare are our highest priority. The country progresses, when they progress. All four require and receive government support in their quest to better their lives. Their empowerment and well-being will drive the country forward," she said.
Opposition parties slammed the budget with Congress leader P Chidambaram stating that the Finance Minister had not talked about unemployment and that fundamental flaw in the NDA's approach to the economy and governance is that "it is biased in favour of the rich".
"It is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich," he alleged. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said the interim budget lacked accountability and vision.
In a major announcement, the Finance Minister said that the scheme of fifty-year interest-free loan for capital expenditure to states will be continued this year with total outlay of Rs 1.3 lakh crore. A provision of Rs 75,000 crore as a fifty-year interest-free loan is proposed this year to support the milestone-linked reforms of Viksit Bharat by the State Governments.
She announced that for tech-savvy youth, this will be a golden era, as a corpus of Rs one lakh crore will be established with fifty-year interest free loan. She said the corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates. This will also encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains, she added.
The minister said that interim budget contains a number of announcements and strategies indicating directions and development approach for making India Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Sitharaman announced amidst thumping of desks that the Indian economy has witnessed profound positive transformation in the last ten years and the people of India are looking ahead to the future with hope and optimism.
"Conditions were created for more opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship. The economy got a new vigour. The fruits of development started reaching the people at scale. The country got a new sense of purpose and hope."
The minister said that the capital expenditure outlay for the next year is being increased by 11.1 per cent to Rs 11,11,111 crore, which would be 3.4 per cent of the GDP.
As per the First Advance Estimates of National Income of FY 2023-24, presented along with the Finance Minister's speech, India's Real GDP is projected to grow at 7.3 per cent.
This is also in line with the upward revision in growth projections for FY2023-24 by the RBI (in its December 2023 Monetary Policy Committee meeting) from 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent, prompted by strong growth in Q2 of FY2023-24.
The Finance Minister stated that strong growth in economic activity has imparted buoyancy to revenue collections and pointed out that GST collection stood at Rs 1.65 lakh crore in December 2023. This is the seventh time that gross GST revenues have crossed Rs 1.6 lakh crore benchmark.
She said the total receipts other than borrowings and the total expenditure in 2024-25 are estimated at Rs 30.80 and 47.66 lakh crore respectively. The tax receipts are estimated at Rs 26.02 lakh crore.
Referring to the fiscal consolidation, as announced in her Budget Speech for 2021-22, to reduce fiscal deficit below 4.5 per cent by 2025-26, Sitharaman said that the fiscal deficit in 2024-25 is estimated to be 5.1 per cent of GDP.
For Railways, three major economic railway corridor programmes will be implemented-energy, mineral and cement corridors, port connectivity corridors, and high-traffic density corridors.
The minister said that 40,000 normal rail bogies will be converted to the Vande Bharat standards to enhance safety, convenience and comfort of passengers.
She announced that the Government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population growth and demographic changes and the committee will be mandated to make recommendations for addressing these challenges comprehensively in relation to the goal of 'Viksit Bharat'.
The minister said the government will pay utmost attention to make the eastern region and its people a powerful driver of India's growth, PM Awas Yojana (Grameen) is close to achieving the target of three crore houses and two crore more houses will be taken up in the next five years to meet the requirement arising from increase in the number of families. Through rooftop solarization, one crore households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units of free electricity every month.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana has benefitted 38 lakh farmers and generated 10 lakh employment. Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Yojana has assisted 2.4 lakh SHGs and 60,000 individuals with credit linkages.
With no change relating to taxation proposed, the same rates for direct taxes and indirect taxes, including import duties, have been retained. However, to provide continuity in taxation, certain tax benefits to Start-Ups and investments made by sovereign wealth or pension funds as also tax exemptions on certain income of some IFC units have been extended by one year up to March 31, 2025.
On the status of the Indian economy, the Union Minister said that in 2014 the responsibility to mend the economy step by step and to put the Governance systems in order was enormous.
She said it was done by the Modi government sucessfully following its strong belief of 'nation-first'.
The minister assured that the crisis of those years has been overcome and economy has been put firmly on a high sustainable growth path with all-round development.
She announced that the Government will come out with a white paper, on "where we were then till 2014 and where we are now, only for the purpose of drawing lessons from the mismanagement of those years".
Sitharaman said the gross and net market borrowings through dated securities during 2024-25 are estimated at Rs 14.13 and 11.75 lakh crore respectively and these will be less than that in 2023-24.
Pointing out some of the bright spots of the economy, the Finance Minister informed that the Revised Estimate of the total receipts other than borrowings is Rs 27.56 lakh crore, of which the tax receipts are Rs 23.24 lakh crore. The Revised Estimate of the total expenditure is Rs 44.90 lakh crore. The revenue receipts at Rs 30.03 lakh crore are expected to be higher than the Budget Estimate, reflecting strong growth momentum and formalization in the economy.
Sitharaman also stated that the gross and net market borrowings through dated securities during 2024-25 are estimated at Rs14.13 and 11.75 lakh crore respectively and both will be less than that in 2023-24.
She announced that the FDI inflow during 2014-23 was USD 596 billion marking a golden era and this is twice the inflow during 2005-14.
For encouraging sustained foreign investment, the government is negotiating bilateral investment treaties with foreign partners in the spirit of 'first develop India', the Finance Minister added
Elaborating the government's "humane and inclusive approach" to development, she said it is marked and deliberate departure from the earlier approach of "provisioning up-to-village level".
Development programmes, in the last ten years, have targeted every household and individual, through 'housing for all', 'hargharjal', electricity for all, cooking gas for all, bank accounts and financial services for all, in record time, she added.
The Finance Minister stressed that this Government is working with an approach to development that is all-round, all-pervasive and all-inclusive. It covers all castes and people at all levels.
"We are working to make India a 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047. To achieve that goal, we need to improve people's capabilities and empower them. Previously, social justice was mostly a political slogan. For our government, social justice is an effective and necessary governance model".
The Finance Minister informed that with the pursuit of 'Sabka ka Saath' in the past 10 years, the Government has assisted 25 crore people to get freedom from multi-dimensional poverty.
She informed that PM Mudra Yojana has sanctioned 43 crore loans aggregating to Rs 22.5 lakh crore for entrepreneurial aspirations. About 30 crore Mudra Yojana loans have been given to women entrepreneurs.
She said the government will pay utmost attention to make the eastern region and its people a powerful driver of India's growth, PM Awas Yojana (Grameen) is close to achieving the target of three crore houses and two crore more houses will be taken up in the next five years to meet the requirement arising from increase in the number of families. Through rooftop solarization, one crore households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units free electricity every month.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana has benefitted 38 lakh farmers and generated 10 lakh employment. Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Yojana has assisted 2.4 lakh SHGs and sixty thousand individuals with credit linkages.
On the aviation sector, the number of airports have doubled to 149 and today five hundred and seventeen new routes are carrying 1.3 crore passengers. Indian carriers have pro-actively placed orders for over 1000 new aircrafts.
The Finance Minister recalled that PM Modi in his Independence Day address to the nation, in the 75th year of our Republic said, "we commit ourselves to national development, with new inspirations, new consciousness, new resolutions, as the country opens up immense possibilities and opportunities".
"It is our 'kartavya kaal'. Every challenge of the pre-2014 era was overcome through our economic management and our governance and these have placed the country on a resolute path of sustained high growth. This has been possible through our right policies, true intentions, and appropriate decisions. In the full budget in July, our Government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of 'Viksit Bharat'," she said.
Sitharaman made an announcement to improve tax payer services as part of government's efforts to improve ease of living and ease of doing business.
There are a large number of petty, non-verified, non-reconciled or disputed direct tax demands, many of them dating as far back as the year 1962, which continue to remain on the books, causing anxiety to honest taxpayers and hindering refunds of subsequent years. The Interim Budget proposes to withdraw such outstanding direct tax demands up to Rs 25000 pertaining to the period up to financial year 2009-10 and up to Rs 10,000 for financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15. This is expected to benefit about one crore tax payers.
Appreciating the tax payers for their support, Sitharaman said that over the last 10 years the direct tax collections have more than trebled and the return filers swelled to 2.4 times. She highlighted that the government has reduced and rationalised the tax rates due to which under the new tax regime there is no tax liability for tax payers with income up to Rs. 7 lakh.
In his reaction, Chidambaram said the Finance Minister id not acknowledge" the rampant unemployment" and did not utter a word on how the government intended to address the problem.
"By deliberate neglect over the last 10 years, the government has destroyed the demographic dividend story and dashed the hopes of millions of youth and their families," he said.
Kharge said "there was nothing for the poor, lower middle-class, and middle-class citizens in the interim budget" and the government did not state how many of the promises it had made had been fulfilled.
TMC MP Santanu Sen said there is nothing in the interim budget and "there is no direction,".
"There is no mention of poverty, no discussion to halt in employment," he said.