Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has begun her maiden budget speech in Parliament on Friday. 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.
