Supreme self-confidence. That was the hallmark of the interim budget presentation by the Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday in a crisp 58-minute speech in Parliament.
There was no additional concession in taxes or give-aways including in the widely-expected PM-Kisan scheme. But the budget maths added to the credibility of the Government’s annual exercise. For instance, against a projected tax income of Rs 23.30 lakh crore for 23-24, the revised estimates indicate that the tax collections will be Rs 23.23 lakh crores.
After the downslide during Covid-hit 2020-21, this is the third year running that the Government has succeeded in meeting its revenue mop-up. This also enabled it to contain the fiscal deficit at 5.8% as against the budgeted 5.9%. The deficit is targeted to be 5.1% by 2025 and the Government had stated last year itself that the attempt will be to bring it down to 4.5% by 25-26.
Most of the speech was devoted to outlining the achievements of the Government in the last 10 years and laying out a vision for the future. “Besides delivering on high growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product, the Government is equally focused on a more comprehensive ‘GDP’, i.e., ’Governance, Development and Performance’. Our Government has provided transparent, accountable, people-centric and prompt trust-based administration with ‘citizen-first’ and ‘minimum government, maximum governance’ approach.
The impact of all-round development is discernible in all sectors. There is macro-economic stability, including in the external sector. Investments are robust. The economy is doing well…average real income of the people has increased by 50%, ” the Finance Minister said.
While the thrust of the Government will remain on the welfare of the poor, farmers, women and the youth, there were at least five major announcements which made the interim exercise significant.
- 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. This is a major initiative which will meet the pressing need of affordable housing for the poor apart from generating jobs in the process
- Through rooftop solarisation, one crore household will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units free electricity every month. This is expected to household savings of about Rs 15000-Rs 18000 annually for households.
- A corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore will be established with a 50-year interest-free loan to encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains. This will help boost innovation and deep-tech.
- The outlay for infrastructure has been increased by 11% from the current year’s Rs 10 lakh crore . Given the multiplier of infra investments and the positive downstream effects on core sectors like cement and steel, this is a move which is a continuation of the higher outlays that we have witnessed in the last four years.
- From the existing pool of women constituting the self-help groups under the National Livelihood Mission (including the likes of Kudumbasree of Kerala) the Governmet plans to support creation of 3 crore lakhpati entrepreneurs (against 2 crore targeted earlier). This credit-linked welfare programme where the interest subvention is entirely funded by the Centre is an important livelihood support to rural households and will yield positive results.
End of the day, the message from the Government seemed to be that it does not want to rock a boat which is cruising steady and well enough right now. And “ just wait till the new government is sworn in to hear more from us”.
(The author is a commentator on banking and finance. Views are personal)