Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 31said the Union Budget strikes a fine balance between growth, employment, capital investment, and fiscal consolidation, among others.
Replying to the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25 and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in Rajya Sabha, Ms. Sitharaman also said the Budget proposes unflinching support to cooperative federalism.
“I would like to underline that our unflinching commitment to cooperative federalism. The total resources proposed to be transferred to the States in 2024-25 is estimated at ₹22.91 lakh crore. This actually entails an increase of ₹2.49 lakh crore over 2023-24,” the minister said.
Referring to Union Budget, she said the capital expenditure in the last 10 years of the Narendra Modi government stood at ₹43.82 lakh crore, which is compared to ₹13.19 lakh crore during the decade-ago rule of UPA.
She also said the PLI schemes continue to remain attractive for the manufacturing sector. The Budget is an exercise to make India an attractive destination for manufacturing companies, she added.
She also said the government is complying with the fiscal deficit trajectory. It will bring down the deficit to below 4.5% by 2025-26 from the targeted 4.9% for the current fiscal.
The finance minister highlighted that for agriculture and allied sectors the budget has allocated ₹1.52 lakh crore, which is ₹8,000 crore more than the previous year. For comparison, in 2013-14, the last year of Congress-led UPA, only ₹30,000 crore was allocated for agriculture.
She also emphasised that the financial position of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has improved. She noted that the J&K Bank has made a turnaround and posted profit.
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