Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached the Parliament to take part in the Cabinet meeting ahead of the Union Budget presentation.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver the Union Budget 2023 at 11am today. This will be the last full Budget of the second Narendra Modi government ahead of general elections in 2024. The Union Budget 2023 might not offer any major relief to households due to fiscal restraints. It would focus on long-term growth instead. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to announce increase in budget allocations for health, education and rural projects, helped by a pick up in tax collections. She might tweak tax rules including an alteration to the structure of capital gains tax, which would encourage investments.
Yesterday, following the President’s address to the joint-sitting of the Parliament, Ms. Sitharaman had tabled the Economic Survey for the Financial Year 2022-23. The Economic Survey said that India’s economic recovery from the pandemic is complete and the economy is expected to grow in the range of 6% to 6.8% in the coming financial year 2023-24.The Survey also said that India remains the fastest growing major economy in the world.Meanwhile, RBI projected 6.8% inflation this fiscal outside the upper target limit, which the Survey said is “not high enough to deter private consumption, also not too low to weaken inducement to invest.”