Opinion: A Budget For Political Balancing Or Future?

The first budget of NDA 3.0 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today. As the budget was being unveiled, the share markets slipped a little low. An overall look at the budget speaks of a long run work – it is not a bad budget but a budget that could have brought in more than that’s on the files.

The budget began with a mention of the ‘poor, women, youth and the farmer,’ with announcements for all four class and outlined nine significant sections – Productivity and resilience in agriculture, Employment and skilling, Inclusive human development and social justice, Manufacturing and services, Urban development, Energy security, Infrastructure, Innovation research and development and Next-gen reforms. It definitely targets common people with announcements on a revision of tax structure aimed at the middle class, abolishing angel tax in the case of all classes of investors in startups, employment schemes especially for first-times, e-voucher for loans for higher education for one lakh students every year, reduction in custom duties on three cancer related medicines and support for two crore farmers in the next two years.

Focusing more on common people, mobile phones and chargers could become cheaper, custom duties on gold, silver and platinum has been brought down, there are mention of street vendors and industrial workers too. Along with short term or people targeted announcements, the budget is based on long term pictures such as emphasis on natural farming, raising productivity and climate resilient varieties, Atma Nirbharta in oil seeds and focus on solar, thermal and nuclear energies. This is a budget which is also for the coming years.

The 2024-25 budget is also a political balance, if I may say so – the states of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh seems to have captured more space than other states. There is focus on eastern states under the ‘Purvodaya’ scheme. Tourism has been touched upon but with emphasis on certain corridors. There is flood relief mentioned for Himachal Pradesh Uttarakhand and Sikkim.

Thus, for the question of whether, the concerns of yesterdays have been addressed, then, yes, there is a focus on grassroots, agriculture, employment of youth, investments, digitalisation, future energy and future reforms, but, at the same time it has to be said, there is an inadequacy at some level. Maybe the government could have brought in more employment schemes, more incentives for the farmers, more focus of states along with the particularly focussed states and maybe more on tax reliefs for the middle class. Maybe the analysts expected more…