With the target of becoming a $5-trillion economy by 2024-25, Finance Minsiter Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday expressed confidence that the Indian economy would become a $3-trillion economy this year itself. "The Indian economy will grow to become a $3 trillion economy in the current year itself. It is now the sixth largest in the world. Five years ago it was at the 11th position," Nirmala Sitharaman said as she began presenting her maiden budget speech in the Lok Sabha.
"From $1.85 trillion in 2014, the economy has reached $2.7 trillion; we can very well reach $5 trillion dollars in the next few years," the FM exhumed confidence. Interestingly, the Economic Survey of India presented on Thursday also gave an outline of how to take India to a $5-trillion economy and the third-largest in the world by 2024-25.
This is the first budget after Narendra Modi was re-elected as the prime minister for the second time consecutively in the recently concluded general elections with a whopping mandate.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the first full-time woman finance minister of the country, is tasked with the huge challenge of recovering the economy from a slowdown. A mini-stimulus to take the economy out of five-year low alongside giving some tax relief to common man may be on the cards. Sitharaman will have to do a tightrope walk balancing the needs of the economy and fiscal constraints in her maiden Budget.
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Earlier in the day, she and MoS Finance Anurag Thakur met President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Soon after the duo arrived at Parliament for budget presentation. The Union cabinet also held a brief meeting and approved the budget 2019.
The new Narendra Modi government has given enough clues on what's on its mind for the first year of its tenure which will set the tone for the remaining four years. The budget is likely to have measures to boost agriculture, farm incomes, unorganised sector and small businesses. Job creation is another area which Sitharaman is likely to address by encouraging self-employment schemes. The suggestions to have something for these sections of the society have come from the Sangh bodies like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Bharat Mazdoor Sangh and Bhartiya Kisan Sangh.
