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New Delhi: At around 11 am IST today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will begin presenting the last full-year budget ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a third term in elections due next year. The budget is expected to lay out a spending plan of more than $544 billion for the financial year starting April 2023 to boost jobs, fund social welfare, and provide perks for manufacturing, as reported by Bloomberg citing a survey of economists.
In the annual budget that will be presented today, the government will seek to lower its fiscal deficit, while offering incentives for investment, and stepping up state spending to support the economy caught in a global slowdown. Reuters has quoted officials who said even though the government faces elections in key states this year and a national one in 2024, the budget is unlikely to offer major relief to households due to fiscal constraints.
The Union Budget 2023-24 speech will likely focus on addressing concerns over slowing economic growth. In the Economic Survey that was tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday, the government has cut the projected gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the current fiscal from 7 per cent to 6.5 per cent.
The slowdown in growth projection will require a balancing act by the Finance Minister who is expected to announce a further reduction of fiscal gap from 6.4 per cent of GDP to 5.9 per cent in the year ending March while going to another year of record borrowing, according to economists quoted on Bloomberg.
What Sitharaman’s platter has to serve on capital spending will also been keenly looked upon as the policy analysts are expecting the government to spend at least 20 per cent of the budget on capital investment.
The lawmakers of the Opposition political parties are expected to corner the government over alleged favouritism towards Gautam Adani, the Indian billionaire businessman who recently came under the attack of US-based short seller Hindenburg Research.
Even though the short-seller’s report against Adani came days ahead of the country’s much-hyped and largest follow on public offer (FPO) by Adani Enterprises, the flagship Adani company managed to sail through despite market concerns.
Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of Indian National Congress, has already upped the ante against the government saying the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) shares have already lost Rs 22,442 crore in just two days following the expose.
“Modi Govt changes it’s name to LOOT INVESTMENT for CRONIES!”, said Kharge.
“We have demanded discussion in the house. crores of people’s hard earned money got drowned in LIC SBI. Why is ED, CBI, SEBI, IT not taking action on Adani?”, asked Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh in a tweet.
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