Budget's Reset 2.O

Finance minister doubles down on Building India theme while using buoyant tax revenues and extra borrrowings to push growth. Will it pay off?

- Joe C. Mathew

SOON AFTER Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented Union Budget FY2023 on February 1, commerce secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam was flooded with messages from exporters, their representative bodies and other stakeholders. They were gung-ho about export sectors, including labour intensive ones like gems and jewellery, garments, marine, electronics and engineering products. The tone of the messages was so positive that Subrahmanyam now considers the Budget as one of the most export-friendly ever. “There is nothing on our menu that we asked (finance ministry) for and didn’t get (in the Budget),” he says.

The other department under Ministry of Commerce and Industry – Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade or DPIIT – is equally jubilant. The biggest Budget announcement, the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan to align roads, railways, airports, ports, waterways and logistics as engines for economic transformation, is about promoting industry, trade, manufacturing and services, in the process taking Indian economy on a high growth path by the time the country celebrates its 100th year of Independence 25 years from now. “A roadmap for new India; a transformative approach for economic growth and sustainability,” is how DPIIT Secretary Anurag Jain describes the Budget.

India Inc. agrees. “This statement of intent is clearly supported by a plan for the future, and backed by allocations – specifically in infrastructure, digital transition, planet resilience, education and health – to support Indian ambitions,” says Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran.