Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with eminent economists to elicit their views and suggestions for the upcoming Budget on Thursday. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present the Budget for 2024-25 in the Lok Sabha on July 23.
Besides economists and sectoral experts, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Suman Bery and other members also attended the meeting. Finance Minister Sitharaman, Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran and economists Surjit Bhalla and Ashok Gulati and veteran banker K V Kamath among others were present in the meeting.
The Budget for 2024-25 will be the first major economic document of the Modi 3.0 Government, which, among other things, is expected to lay the road map for making India a developed nation by 2047. President Droupadi Murmu, in her address to the joint sitting of Parliament last month, had indicated that the Government would come out with historic steps to accelerate the pace of reforms.
The meeting followed days after Sitharaman concluded the pre-budget discussions with various stakeholders on July 7. The talks spanned over several days with 120 invitees, 10 stakeholder groups presenting their recommendations and views regarding their expectation from the Budget.
The telecom sector has sought a special regime for operators and farm groups have demanded more funds for research and development and an increase in the value of the PM-KISAN support scheme among other things.
Similarly, experts have also suggested the Centre to ease the tax burden on the taxpayers in a bid to boost consumption. There are speculations that major tax reforms may be introduced, including increased threshold for standard deduction, possible restructure of capital gains taxes among other things.
Insurance companies have pushed for tax relief in order to make their products more affordable and consequently boost penetration.
The MSME sector has put forth suggestions such as relaxing the 45-day payment rule, which requires making payments to MSMEs within 45 days of buying goods and services to check large corporations from looking at other sourcing avenues.
Meanwhile, the central government employees’ union wants the restoration of the old pension scheme, the immediate constitution of the 8th Pay Commission, removal of the 5 per cent cap on compassionate appointments among other demands.