Budget lays road map to reshape Ind8k8 online gamesia

As the first major economic document of Narendra Modi's new government, the midyear budget presented to parliament on Tuesday aims to lay out the road map for transforming the country into "Viksit Bharat" (developed India) by 2047, while some said it is a lopsided one.

Prime Minister Modi, now in his third consecutive term, proposed in the budget to significantly increase spending for job creation, rural development and infrastructure, and launch reforms for foreign investment and trade.

In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government is focused on boosting productivity and resilience in agriculture, promoting employment and skills development, supporting manufacturing and services sectors, advancing urban development, strengthening energy security and investing in infrastructure.

Modi said on Tuesday that Budget 2024 empowers the neo-middle class, the poor, villagers and farmers.

The proposed budget includes a $24 billion package to create jobs over the next five years and increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses. It allocates $18 billion to support agriculture and agricultural technology, such as climate-resilient seeds.

According to the budget, the rules and regulations for foreign direct investment and overseas investments will be simplified to facilitate such investments.

To attract foreign capital for India's development needs, corporate tax rate on foreign companies will be reduced from 40 to 35 percent, Sitharaman said.

Swaran Singh, a professor of diplomacy and disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said: "It's reassuring as this post-election budget of the coalition government still reflects continuity in most of the ongoing policies and projects."

Managing persistent fiscal deficit by expanding the tax base and compliance, expanding allocations for building climate-conscious and disaster-resilient infrastructure will be major challenges ahead, Singh said. Some of these could be tackled by offering incentives such as tax reliefs to enhance domestic and global investors' confidence in India being a land of opportunities for them.

'Not enough'

However, economist Abhirup Sarkar said this is a very lopsided budget and in any case it is not a good budget. The scheme for job creation is not enough to arrest the growing unemployment rate, adding it is an attempt to please its coalition partners to stay in power.

The budget will cut taxes on big companies and allocate more money to two states, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, whose regional parties are the biggest coalition partners of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. Proposals have been made to build new airports, medical colleges, and sports and tourism facilities in the eastern state of Bihar, which is ruled by the Janata Dal (United) party.

The government should find out long-term measures to arrest the growing unemployment and it should boost domestic manufacturing sectors for job creation, suggested Biswajit Dhar, a former professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Nuclear energy forms a significant part of the energy mix for "Viksit Bharat" in the budget. The government will partner with the private sector to set up Bharat Small Reactors, research and development of Bharat Small Modular Reactors, and research and development of newer technologies for nuclear energy.

Aparajit Chakraborty is a freelance journalist for China Daily.