‘The focus of the budget is on the poor, youth, food providers and women’, Finance Minister in the Lok Sabha
New Delhi| Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman responded to the discussion on Budget 2025-26 in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. During this, he said that the budget balances national development needs with fiscal priorities. He said that the inflation trend, especially food inflation, seems to be decreasing. The Finance Minister said that the government is emphasizing on making agriculture, MSME, investment and exports growth engines and bringing prosperity in villages.
The Finance Minister said that the focus of Budget 2025-26 is on “Poor, Youth, Annadata and Nari”. Its basis was to introduce new schemes and reforms to promote agriculture, MSME and exports. The measures taken, along with the provision of growth, rural prosperity and resilience, serve as engines of growth. The Finance Minister said that emphasis is being laid on increasing production in the 100 districts most backward in agricultural production.
Responding to the discussion on the budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that before 2014,5% of households did not have LPG connections or clean fuel. Now clean cooking fuel is available to about 32 crore households, that is, to about 100% of households. More than 10.3 crore beneficiaries are getting LPG cylinders for Rs 503.
Over the last 10 years the world’s landscape has changed 180 degrees. Budgeting has become more challenging than ever. Responding to the Union Budget debate in the Lok Sabha, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I am very grateful that the members have chosen to go into the details of the budget”. This budget comes at a time of great uncertainty, and changes in the global macroeconomic environment make it challenging. So, if there are challenges, which have led to a lot of uncertainties indeed in the preparation of the budget, I have to put it to the least respected House that there are issues that are of global concern, which also have an impact on our own budget making.
The Finance Minister said that the global conflict in the Middle East continues, the Russia-Ukraine war continues, stability in global GDP and stable inflation in emerging markets are worsening the environment in all developing economies. He said that we ideally have a situation that would encourage free trade, we are not seeing any restrictions, where we are very strongly committed to globalization, we are seeing a lot of fragmentation, where we need fiscal prudence. Needed, we are seeing rising debt.
The Finance Minister said in the Lok Sabha that the target for effective capital expenditure for 2025-26 is 4.3% of GDP and the fiscal deficit is 4.4% of GDP. This shows that the government is making rational use of credit resources to finance effective capital expenditure and build capital assets.
“The government intends to use around 99% of lending resources to finance effective capital expenditure in the coming year (2025-26)”, the finance minister said. In the year 2025-26, the regional outlay will be Rs 1.71 lakh crore to agriculture, Rs 2.67 lakh crore to rural development, Rs 6.45 lakh crore to urban development and transport, Rs 2.27 lakh crore to health and education, Rs 4.92 lakh crore to defense (which does not include defense pension) I just want to highlight the fact that money is not being denied to any capital expenditure account”
