No Change In Tax Slab, Capex Outlay Up 11.1% To Rs 11,11,111 Crore, Boosters To Railways

The scheme of fifty-year interest free loan for capital expenditure to states will be continued this year with total outlay of Rs.1.3 lakh crore.

In an interim Budget which walks the tightrope between prudence and populism and manages to straddle the shores of reforms and economic management, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set an ambitious agenda to leverage governance, development and perfomance (GDP) as a new paradigm to steer the vision for ‘Viksit Bharat’ in harmony with nature, with modern infrastructure and providing opportunities for all citizens and all regions to reach their potential”.

The strategy laid out in the Interim Budget is to build on a strong economic foundation highlighted by the Government’s projected real GDP growth of 7.3 per cent in financial year 2023-24 and global opinion. A robust growth in Q2 of FY202324 of the Indian economy marked by resilience and healthy macro-economic fundamentals, despite global economic challenges has prompted the RBI on an upward revision in growth projections for FY2023-24 from 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent. The International Monetary Fund in its World Economic Outlook (WEO), October 2023, has revised its growth projection for India for FY2023-24 upwards to 6.3 per cent from 6.1 per cent projected in July 2023, reflecting increasing global confidence in India's economic prowess at a time when global growth projection for 2023 remains unchanged at 3 per cent.