FM says Budget balanced, takes care of all segments

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Union Budget strikes a fine balance between growth, employment, and fiscal consolidation, and promotes cooperative federalism.

Replying to the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25 and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Budget in Rajya Sabha, the minister said the government is on track to achieve the pre-announced fiscal deficit target of 4.5 per cent by 2025-26.

Sitharaman, also a former defence minister, said the Agniveer Scheme to recruit people in the age group of 17.5 to 21 years, is aimed at keeping the armed forces fit, young and battle-ready.

The minister, who presented her seventh Union Budget, also said the economic document proposes unflinching support for 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 are estimated at Rs 22.91 lakh crore. This actually entails an increase of Rs 2.49 lakh crore over 2023-24," the minister said.

She said capital expenditure is pegged at Rs 11.11 lakh crore.

"This is the biggest ever allocation for capital expenditure and it shows increase of about 17 per cent over the RE and provisional actuals of the FY 2023-24," she said, adding that during the Congress-led UPA era, the capex allocation was Rs 13.19 lakh crore between 2004-05 to 2013-14.

"Whereas during our tenure from 2014 to 2024, the allocation for capex has been Rs 43.82 lakh crore from 2014-15 to 2023-24," she said.On criticism that she only referred to two states in her budget speech and ignored the rest, Sitharaman said the budget is for all states, in past also, including the UPA era, the names of all states were not mentioned.

She emphasised that if a state has not been mentioned in the speech, it does not mean there is no allocation for it.

Several opposition members had raised issues related to the devolution of taxes to states.

To this, Sitharaman it is wrong to calculate devolution based on gross tax receipts, and then claim that the Centre is devolving less than what is suggested by the Finance Commission.

The minister also said tax revenues have seen impressive growth. Also, efforts on metering have improved billing and collection efficiency in the power sector, that has also resulted in non-tax revenues increasing from Rs 5,148 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 6,500 crore in 2023-24.

Sitharaman 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 per cent by 2025-26 from the targeted 4.9 per cent for the current fiscal.

The finance minister highlighted that for agriculture and allied sectors the budget has allocated Rs 1.52 lakh crore, which is Rs 8,000 crore more than the previous year.

For comparison, in 2013-14, the last year of Congress-led UPA, only Rs 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 said the UT has discontinued the earlier practices of running ‘hundis’ and overdrafts from J&K Bank for its day-to-day cash management.

During the last four years, the J&K Bank has made a remarkable turnaround. From a loss of Rs 1,139 crore in 2019-20, the Bank had a profit of Rs 1,700 crore in the year 2023-24.

The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is in a healthy fiscal situation being able to meet the developmental aspirations of the people, she added.

She also took on Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram for misleading statement regarding appointment of DGPs in states.

While participating in the discussion, Chidambaram criticised the Agniveer scheme and asked the government to withdraw it.

Sitharaman countered Chidambaram's contention by asserting that the scheme "is a very reformative step to enhance the capabilities and battle readiness of our armed forces".

"It ensures actually that we have fit soldiers who are on the front line. One of the expected outcomes of this scheme is that armed forces will have a much younger force by recruiting those in the age group of 17.5-21 years and retaining only 25 per cent. Thus reducing the age of the Indian soldier," the minister said.

On opposition's criticisim of NEET, Sitharaman said that in 2011 when DMK rule concluded, Tamil Nadu had just 1,945 medical seats.

Presently there are 10,425 medical seats, a surge of 8,480 seats in the past 11 years in Tamil Nadu, she said.

"NEET has ensured cost effective medical education for families. Certainly it has hurt some vested interests, particularly those in the medical education field because no longer selling medical seats is possible. Therefore it has hurt a lot of people. That is why a particular lobby was actively against NEET even before this NEET leak issue has come up," she added.

The finance minister stressed that the government's policy is to make youth more competent.

In her reply, Sitharaman also talked about high inflation during the UPA rule while highlighting the measures taken by the Modi government on price front.