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.
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.
Scrapping Plan and non-Plan classifications necessitates the change
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Grameen has the highest unutilised amount (Rs 13,111 crore) compared to any other centrally sponsored scheme.
Several executives argue that UPI has the potential to grow tenfold, but warn that the absence of a monetisation model risks stagnating the real-time payments system, which has been recording all-time-high transaction volumes every year.
The Centre's fiscal deficit, the gap between the government's expenditure and income, stood at Rs 1 trillion during April-May, constituting over one-fourth of the budget estimate for the entire 2010-11 fiscal.
'We remain cautious in this environment, and the uncertainty continues.'
'From tariff tensions and border skirmishes to unrest in West Asia.' 'The worst may be behind us. But any further upmove will now have to come from earnings.'
To help compare numbers better, FinMin might retain the interim Budget Estimates with the new ones.
The idea is to get the budget passed by Parliament along with Appropriations Bill and the Finance Bill by the end of March as this would ensure implementation of the Budget proposals from April 1.
Let's wait for the monetary policy on February 8 -- to see how it complements the fiscal commitments, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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.
While the tax-to-GDP ratio of 9.88 per cent has been assumed for FY21, the same as last year, when it touched a decadal low, for FY22 a ratio of 10.7 per cent has been assumed, an average of the last five years.
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.
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.
In the run-up to the Union Budget, expected to be presented on July 10, this paints a grim picture for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
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.
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.
Following are comments from economists at leading financial institutions, banks and rating agencies on the interim Budget:
The Indian Army's broader reorganisation is inevitable as India's military doctrine adapts to the demands of the modern battlefield.
...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.
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 government plans to borrow a record Rs 15.4 lakh crore from dated securities in FY24 to meet its expenditure requirement to prop up the economy.
The fiscal situation is an improvement over the previous year.
In a continued push to spiritual tourism, there will be a focus on destinations related to the life and times of Lord Buddha.
On the back of robust tax collection, the ratio of direct taxes to gross domestic product (GDP) this financial year is likely to be the highest in this century so far. This, along with strong goods and services tax (GST) collection, may drive up receipts from central taxes as a proportion of GDP to the highest level or close to the highest since 2008-09 despite subdued excise and customs duty receipts. This will be due also to lower nominal GDP projected in the first advance estimates for 2023-24.
The Interim Budget for 2024-25 (FY25) to be presented on February 1 is likely to assume 10-10.5 per cent nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth against 8.9 per cent estimated for FY24 by the National Statistical Office (NSO). "We were waiting for the First Advance Estimates GDP numbers for FY24. "We will finalise the nominal GDP growth assumption for FY25 Interim Budget in a couple of days.
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.
While the finance minister had a great opportunity to come out with flying colours while presenting this last Budget of his government, he didn't, says Omkar Goswami.
A 5 per cent increase in fees for various licences has been proposed without tweaking the existing tax structure. The BMC's total budget estimates for the next financial year are 8.95 per cent more than the last fiscal.
'Market feels this Budget will promote all-round growth and that is what is giving it confidence.'
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 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).
'The numbers are null and void now. Look, we can give out projections now, but we know that a week later those numbers will also be irrelevant. So we need to wait,' a top government official said.
The Centre and states are likely to budget for higher market borrowings to the tune of Rs 2.3 lakh crore next fiscal even though the Union budget may peg a lower-than-expected fiscal deficit for the Centre at 5.8 per cent of GDP, says a report. Icra Ratings anticipates higher redemptions will lead to gross market borrowings of the Centre to rise to Rs 14.8 lakh crore and of the states to jump by Rs 1.6 lakh crore to Rs 9.6 lakh crore, taking the combined borrowings (of the Centre and the states) to Rs 24.4 lakh crore in FY2024, up by 2.3 lakh crore from FY23 combined. In FY23, the Centre's gross borrowings are budgeted at Rs 14.1 lakh crore and of the states at Rs 8 lakh crore, or a combined borrowing of Rs 22.1 lakh crore, according to the agency.
'As the Budget has taken some measures to spur growth, similar action from the MPC may be expected.'
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) record surplus transfer to the government has raised hopes among bond traders that the government might reduce its gross borrowing for the current financial year (2024-25/FY25) by up to Rs 1 trillion. The RBI approved a dividend of Rs 2.11 trillion for the central government for 2023-24, marking an increase of roughly 141 per cent from 2022-23 (FY23). In addition, the contingency risk buffer has been raised to 6.5 per cent from the previous 6 per cent.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to step up efforts to boost consumption and rural economy while keeping inflation under check when she presents her sixth straight Budget on February 1. Experts said one way to boost consumption is to put more money in the hands of people, and one of the possible ways of doing it is by reducing the tax burden through tinkering with tax slabs or increasing the standard deduction. Another proposal is related to increasing the funds under the rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and higher payout for farmers.
Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav presented the Railway Budget for 2004-2005 in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday (July 6, 2004).
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.
