Budget 2024: FM to present Budget on July 23; Budget Consultations Subsumed Last Week
The Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, and other senior officials from the ministry held consultations with over 120 invitees from 10 different groups as a part of the Pre-Budget consultations in preparation for the Union Budget 2024-25, as stated in a release on Sunday.
The budget for 2024 is going to be presented before parliament in the later part of this month. The consultations on the pre-budget began on June 19 and ended on July 5, 2024.
Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran, Finance Secretary T.V. Somanathan, and other secretary-level officers of the Finance Ministry, including Ajay Seth, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Vivek Joshi and Sanjay Malhotra have attended the pre-budget meetings.
While presenting the Union Budget 2024-25, Sitharaman will take all probable recommendations seriously and critically discuss them, stated the Finance Ministry.
Farmer associations and agricultural economists have called on the government to reduce taxation on agricultural equipment and enhance expenditures on research and development in agriculture. They have also asked for larger funds to broaden the APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority), an export-trade promotional organization of the government.
Trade, as well as service companies, have called upon the finance minister to facilitate doing business in the service sector, to incentivize the transfer pricing regime, to apply higher tariffs on Chinese goods and to form an Indian multinational shipping line.
Experts in the Health and Education Industry have called upon the Center to escalate the proportion of hospital beds and spread awareness about the NEP (National Education Policy). They have also proposed remedies on how the health insurance program known as Ayushman Bharat could be tweaked so that the needy get health facilities at less costly values, among other concerns that focused on social fraternity across the world, women, and children.
On the other hand, prominent trade union leaders have demanded the finance minister focus on improving agriculture, infrastructure, and exports; the formation of the 8th Pay Commission; and the reconvening of the Indian Labour Conference, which is the apex tripartite consultative body in the labour ministry that suggested the government on issues regarding the working class.
