Nirmala Sitharaman's First Budget Interview: Here Are The Key Highlights

Our govt has completed 10 years and we have come from fragile five to top three economies now, says FM.

• Uncertainty is the biggest risk in the global trade

• No one knows what will happen in a couple of years on the global front

Decided to create a defence corridor in Tamil Nadu because of the supportive environment, says FM Sitharaman.

• We have made provisions for self-sufficiency in defence in Interim Budget too

• There will never be enough spent on defence, because we are making up for lost time

There is more misconception rather than truth prevailing in South India, says Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

• Number of people migrating out of India from the South is high

• Decided to create a defence corridor in Tamil Nadu because of the supportive environment

• We will keep both regional backwardness and regional strength in our mind

We have existing schemes running to promote affordable housing for poor, says FM.

Have seen great excitement ever since the launch of 'Lakhpati Didi', says FM.

'Lakpati Didi' concept has reached to the women of India even in the villages, she says.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasises on the need to have a strong logistics network to fulfil ambitions of India.

• 'Viksit Bharat 2047' includes ease of living for all and infra developments

• Need to make transfer of goods over land to ports efficient

• 40,000 bogeys to be built in Vande Bharat standards for connecting India better and faster

Eastern states have to be the engine of growth of India, says FM.

Have had a minister visit the North East every month for last 10 years, she says.

Aim to have professionally run company distribute interest-free loans for innovation, says FM.

• Funding for science and tech in the nation was scattered earlier.

• Will help in funding for innovation if it is beneficial for the nation.

We intend to pay attention to the valuation of listed public sector companies, says FM Sitharaman

• Have brought in PSE policy for disinvestment in 2021.

• Need to focus on the valuation of the public sector companies.

• Needed to fill gaps in internal systems of LIC before IPO.

• We are focusing on improving all PSEs, thereby improving their valuations

Private companies are participating in sectors allied to infrastructure, says FM Sitharaman.

• We also give states funds expecting them to spend on capex

• The Budget has provisions for giving interest free loans to states for 50 years

There has been no cut in capital expenditure allocation, says FM Sitharaman.

• Capital expenditure allocation is on a higher base

• Need to pay attention to the absorption capacity of capex

• We have to steadily keep up capex

• We are starting to see private capex coming in

The current economic growth is sustained and structural, says FM Sitharaman, adding that only the first two years after Covid-19 were the recovery phase.

Government is up for spending on the welfare of the people, says FM Sitharaman. PM Modi is always focused on job creation connected to every new scheme, she says.

We believe in empowerment rather than entitlement, says FM.

• Don't believe in handholding people in a way which hampers their own decision making.

• Government's programmes aim at empowering the people.

Subsidies need not be cut for fiscal discipline, says FM Sitharaman.

• Fiscal discipline & subsidy are not substitute to one another.

• We took off all the pressure of price rise from the farmers' shoulders.

Chose not to do a consultation ahead of Interim Budget, says FM.

Reserved consultation for the Budget in July

In last 10 years benefits have reached to all the people, says FM, adding that people have automatically got confidence in the government.

• We have not just announced schemes

• The Schemes have reached each and every citizen

• Entire money allocated under various schemes has reached all the people

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is talking to NDTV Profit's Sanjay Pugalia.

The Union government not announcing any populist schemes in the interim Union budget 2024 ahead of the Lok Sabha election is "extremely commendable", brokerages have said.

The interim budget surprised positively on the countercyclical fiscal consolidation front, while the details of the incremental capex growth assumptions appear to be somewhat underwhelming, according to Citi Research.

Read the full story here.

A corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore will be established with
fifty-year interest free loan to encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed in the interim budget. The beneficiaries for the funding will be selected through stakeholder process.

FDI inflow during 2014-23 stood at $596 billion marking a golden era, twice the inflow during 2005-14. 
For encouraging sustained foreign investment, we are negotiating bilateral investment treaties with our foreign partners, in the spirit of ‘first develop India’.

The budget has proposed a scheme to help middle class people living in rented houses, slums, chawls and unauthorised colonies to buy or build their own houses.

The Finance Minister also shared plans to build two crore more homes under PM Awas Yojana (Grameen) in the next five years, taking the total count to five crore.

The interim budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled before parliament on Thursday walked the fine line of increasing infrastructure capex while maintaining emphasis on fiscal consolidation.

"All forms of infrastructure, physical, digital or social, are being built in record time," Sitharaman said in her Budget speech.

The outlay for the next fiscal has been increased by 17% over the revised estimate for FY24 to Rs 11.11 lakh crore, representing 3.4% of the GDP. Meanwhile, the government is aiming for fiscal deficit print of 5.1% next year, and below 4.5% by 2025-26.