Budget 2024: Why It Matters for India’s Economy, Society, and Environment
Budget 2024 is a provisional budget that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented on February 1, 2024. It shows the government’s revenue and spending for the first four months of the fiscal year 2024-25, until a new government is formed after the Lok Sabha elections. Some of the key points and explanations for Budget 2024 are:
- Revenue and expenditure: The budget estimates the total revenue receipts at Rs 22.17 lakh crore and the total expenditure at Rs 34.83 lakh crore, resulting in a fiscal deficit of Rs 12.66 lakh crore or 6.8% of GDP.
- Taxation: The budget does not propose any changes in the tax slabs or rates for direct and indirect taxes, except for senior citizens above 75 years of age, who will be exempted from filing income tax returns if they have only pension and interest income.
- Capital expenditure: The budget increases the capital expenditure by 11% to Rs 5.54 lakh crore, with a focus on infrastructure, health, and education sectors2 .
- Technology and innovation: The budget announces a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore to finance technology and innovation, and a scheme to provide collateral-free loans up to Rs 50 lakh to startups .
- Social justice: The budget reaffirms the government’s commitment to the social justice model, which aims to reduce corruption, nepotism, and inequality, and provide welfare and dignity to the poor and marginalized sections of the society.
- Saturation approach: The budget emphasizes the importance of the saturation approach, which ensures that all eligible beneficiaries receive the benefits of various schemes and programs.
- Fiscal consolidation: The budget projects a fiscal deficit of 6.8% of GDP for the fiscal year 2024-25, which is lower than the revised estimate of 9.5% for the current fiscal year. The budget also sets a target of bringing down the fiscal deficit to below 4.5% by 2025-26.
