Finance minister Nirmala sitharaman presented the union budget for 2023 -24 which is expected to serve as Narendra Modi’s second term.
The government will present a note on account next year, and the new government will present a full- fledged budget for 9 months in June and was expected to be completely populist.
This is likely a combination of governments desire to ensure macroeconomic stability.
The finance minister announced that the fiscal deficit for the ongoing year would be content to 6.4% of grass domestic product, in spite of the actual nominal deficit exceeding the budgeted figure by 5.6 persent.
The budget further projected that the fiscal deficit for the coming year would indeed below 6% of GDP at 5.9% growth for FY 24 was assumed to be 10.5% in nominal terms which is not out of live with expectations.
The fiscal consolidation would be enabled by increasing non tax revenue including 30% increase in revenues from the telecom sector and some additional income from the petroleum sector.
The Finance Minister also indicated that the government was maintaining its commitment to invest first growth by increasing the capex outlay for the third year in a row by 33% to rupees 10 lakh crore which would be 3.3% of GDP.
The finance minister used what remained of her fiscal space to announce modest relief for tax payer.
The budget also hopes for compression in some of its subsidy outgo particularly fertilizers.
The jal jeevan mission for rural drinking water will also receive 70,000 crore this year.
Pm Kisan direct payments to farmers will be maintained at rupees 60,000 crore. The pandemic era borrowing guarantee extended to micro, small and medium enterprises will not be discontinued but in fact scaled up with the outlay almost doubling from the pandemic year to over 14,000 crore.
Other government priorities in the run- up to the general election where clearly visible in those schemes that received increased allotments this year.
