Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the last budget of the current Modi government today. The FM’s speech lasted for 58 minutes. This was an interim budget as general elections are to be held in April-May. The full budget is expected to be presented in July 2024 after the formation of the new government at the centre. This was also the sixth consecutive budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Two big things related to common people
The Finance Minister said, “We have continued the tradition of interim budget. This is the reason why the government refrained from making any kind of announcements. However, the focus remained on 4 sectors in the interim budget. Poor, women, youth and Annadata (farmers).”
Income Tax Slab: The government has not given any relief to the common man in income tax this time. No change in tax slab.
Nothing has become cheap or expensive: This time nothing has become cheap or expensive in the budget. Why so? This is because after the GST implemented in 2017, only custom duty and excise duty are increased or decreased in the budget, which affects only a few things.
Focus remained on 4 sectors
For the poor: The government brought 25 crore people out of poverty. Rs 34 lakh crore sent to accounts under Garib Kalyan Yojana.
For women: About 1 crore women became Lakhpati Didi. Now the target is to make 3 crore lakhpati didis.
For the youth: Under the Skill India Mission, 1.4 crore youth were trained and 54 lakh people were retrained. 3 thousand new ITIs were created. Established 7 IITs, 16 IIITs, 7 IIMs, 15 AIIMS and 390 universities for higher education.
Annadata (Farmers): 11.8 crore people have received financial assistance from PM Kisan Yojana.
Lauding the Interim Budget announcements, PM Narendra Modi said, “This budget is based on the youth, poor, women and farmers of developed India. This is the budget for the construction of the country. This is guaranteed to strengthen the foundation of the India of 2047. I congratulate Nirmala ji and her team very much. It is a reflection of India’s young aspiration.”
He said, “Now we have set a target of building 2 crore more new houses. Earlier we had set a target of creating 2 crore Lakhpati Didis, which has been increased to 3 crore. In this budget, emphasis has been laid on empowering the poor and middle class.”
