Post-election capital expenditure (capex) has been weak at 2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in M9FY25. The FY25 revised estimates (RE) indicate 7 per cent growth in FY25 against FY24, implying 21 per cent Y-o-Y growth in Q4FY25 government capex.
India's consumer price index (CPI)-based retail inflation rate is likely to have cooled further in June, thus remaining below the 4 per cent target of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a fifth consecutive month, giving the central bank wiggle room to focus on growth. Economists reckon that the decline is on account of easing prices in various categories of goods, especially food items, and a favourable base effect.
The information technology (IT) services industry may be headed for another year of sluggish growth. Based on the results of the top five IT services companies for the first quarter of 2025-26 (Q1FY26), analysts say the possibility of hitting high single-digit revenue growth in FY26 looks unlikely.
The country's real GDP growth in the first quarter will be better than the Reserve Bank's estimate of 8 per cent, economists said on Tuesday. Economists at the country's largest lender SBI pegged the growth at 8.3 per cent while domestic rating agency Icra estimated it to come even higher at 8.5 per cent. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which expects the GDP to grow at 6.5 per cent in FY24, has estimated a growth of 8 per cent in the April-June period.
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Grameen has the highest unutilised amount (Rs 13,111 crore) compared to any other centrally sponsored scheme.
Per capita income has more than doubled to Rs 1.97 lakh in around nine years. Indian economy has increased in size from being 10th to 5th largest in the world in the past nine years. Seven priorities of the Budget, 'Saptarishi', are inclusive development, reaching the last mile, infrastructure and investment, unleashing the potential, green growth, youth power and financial sector.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd is estimated to have earned 724 million euros (about Rs 6,850 crore) from exporting fuel made from Russian crude oil to the US in one year, an European think tank said in a report. "From January 2024 to the end of January 2025, the US imported EUR 2.8 billion of refined oil from six refineries in India and Turkey that process Russian crude.
At the customary post-Budget media interactions, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her topmost bureaucrats touched upon a number of issues. The minister said the government taxing income from digital virtual assets did not give them legitimacy and that issue was being dealt separately in the planned cryptocurrency Bill. She also expressed confidence that the Budget targets were achievable.
Forget about interim Budgets, one cannot easily recall even a full Budget of any government in recent times having rolled out benefits of this order to such a large number of people, says A K Bhattacharya.
The orders issued this month have selected ministries ranging from home affairs under Amit Shah to rural development, headed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to move to Building 3 -- currently named CCS-03 -- on Kartavya Path. The scale of the shift will be even larger than when most of Lutyens' Delhi's present crop of government buildings came up in the early 1930s.
The fiscal deficit for FY25 has been pegged at 4.8 per cent of GDP and at 4.4 per cent for FY26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. Presenting the Budget 2025-26, she said net market borrowings are estimated at Rs 11.54 lakh crore for next fiscal year.
The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2023-24 from October 10, in the backdrop of revival of the Indian economy and fears of recession in developed countries. The budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of high inflation, job creation, boosting demand, and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent-plus growth path. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said inflation is no longer "red-lettered" and the priority for the government now is job creation and boosting growth.
To boost domestic manufacturing under the Make in India initiative and reduce dependency on imports, the government is expected to announce in the Budget an increase in the minimum local content requirement for public procurement, with certain sectors being granted exceptions. Currently, firms producing goods, services, or works with at least 50 per cent local content are classified as Class-I local suppliers and are preferred the most in government procurement.
Amid FY23 Union Budget's focus on investments, leading domestic credit rating agency Crisil on Wednesday said that the capital expenditure is "not as high as it sounds". It, however, was quick to add that considering that governments usually tend to cut capex during a crisis, the government has maintained its focus on growth-spurring initiatives amid the pandemic. The research wing of the agency said, if one excludes the Rs 1 lakh crore of loans to states for capex included in the headline figure of Rs 7.50 lakh crore or 2.91 per cent, the actual spend in FY23, will go down to 2.58 per cent of GDP, which is barely at par with the revised estimate of FY22.
The central government's fiscal deficit during 2023-24 at 5.6 per cent of the GDP was better than previous estimates of 5.8 per cent on account of higher revenue realisation and lower expenditure, according to official data released on Friday. In actual terms, the fiscal deficit -- or gap between expenditure and revenue -- was Rs 16.53 lakh crore, or 5.63 per cent of the GDP, which grew 8.2 per cent in 2023-24.
India has allocated Rs 1.72 trillion, or 27.67 per cent of the total defence budget to cater to modernisation of the country's arsenal. Modern militaries spend up to 50 to 60 per cent of their total defence budget so that they go into combat with superior weaponry and equipment.
Like 2017-18, govt will seek comments from the public at large, including Facebook and Twitter
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a Rs 11.11 lakh crore spending on infrastructure and vowed to continue reforms as she resisted resorting to populist measures in Modi government's last Budget before general elections, instead choosing to stay on the path of cutting deficit while bolstering measures for focus groups.
In a continued push to spiritual tourism, there will be a focus on destinations related to the life and times of Lord Buddha.
The budgetary allocation for the sector is Rs 60,908.22 crore, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).
The Indian economy is projected to grow at 6.2 per cent in 2025-26, slower than earlier estimated rate of 6.5 per cent, due to escalated trade tensions and global uncertainty, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday. "For India, the growth outlook is relatively more stable at 6.2 per cent in 2025, supported by private consumption, particularly in rural areas," IMF said in its World Economic Outlook (WEO).
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, along with her team of bureaucrats, delved into the fine print of the 2024-25 Budget documents in a press conference, detailing the government's road map on bringing down the debt-to-GDP ratio and bold tax measures.
The Delhi government's budget size for 2022-23 was Rs 75,800 crore and Rs 69,000 crore in the preceding year.
While Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is aiming for a return to the path of fiscal prudence, various departments of the central government appear to be out of sync.
The next Census' findings will help identify the extent of India's ageing population and vulnerability levels.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth straight Budget ahead of the Parliamentary elections, matching the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman in her pre-election Budget, which technically is a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, will seek Parliament's nod for a grant in advance to meet the central government's essential expenditure for the first four months of the new fiscal year that starts in April. A new government elected after the April/May general elections will present the full Budget, likely in July.
In the corresponding period of the last financial year, fiscal deficit was 39.4 per cent of the estimates.
The outlay for defence sector almost remained unchanged compared to what was allocated in the interim budget on February 1.
...to fund the revenue gap. Of the gross market borrowing of Rs 14.13 trillion estimated for FY25, Rs 7.5 trillion, or 53 per cent, is planned to be borrowed in the first half.
Following are comments from economists at leading financial institutions, banks and rating agencies on the interim Budget:
Here are the key numbers to watch out for in the Budget for 2022-23, which is widely expected to boost spending towards policies that create jobs, boost manufacturing, helping rural and agri-economy and infrastructure creation. Sitharaman, who had in her first budget in 2019 replaced leather briefcase -- which had been in use for decades for carrying budget documents -- with a traditional red cloth 'bahi-khata', has spurt in tax collections to her aid in the budget that is expected to a spend-all budget.
The number of centrally sponsored schemes have increased to 35 in FY22 from 30 in FY21 and central sector schemes have increased to 704 from 685 in the previous year, reports Dilasha Seth.
India's economic growth slowed to near two-year low of 5.4 per cent in the July-September quarter of this fiscal due to poor performance of manufacturing and mining sectors, but the country continued to remain the fastest-growing large economy, data showed on Friday. The gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded by 8.1 per cent in the July-September quarter of 2023-24 fiscal. The previous low level of GDP growth at 4.3 per cent was recorded in the third quarter (October-December 2022) of financial year 2022-23.
The sequel factor seems to have worked, as audiences have given a thumbs up to the film.
'As the Budget has taken some measures to spur growth, similar action from the MPC may be expected.'
All eyes are now on how the film grows on Monday, as that would be crucial for the overall run of this big budget entertainer on which the industry has been pining hopes.
Let's wait for the monetary policy on February 8 -- to see how it complements the fiscal commitments, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Scrapping Plan and non-Plan classifications necessitates the change
