Rural demand revival and employment generation will be Nirmala Sitharaman’s priorities in her first budget.
IN HIS BUDGET speech in 1991, finance minister Manmohan Singh expounded on the importance of women in the economy and hiked standard deduction for working women to 15,000 from 12,000. A decade later, Yashwant Sinha in his budget speech sought to enable women to get funds through self-help groups. “I want to put more money in women’s purse,” he said.
Women can be assured of getting more money in their purses as Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s second woman finance minister, presents the budget on July 5. A surprise pick for the post, Sitharaman has given a touch of diplomacy to the office of the finance minister. Market experts, economists, farmers, traders and women, all believe that she would draw a roadmap for a $5 trillion economy by 2034.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been helping her in ample measure. He had held discussions with economists and business leaders on the road ahead for economic policy after the current slowdown. The meetings were coordinated by the NITI Aayog and attended by Commerce and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and minister of state for statistics and programme implementation Rao Inderjit Singh. “We have had a fruitful discussion and many of the suggestions made here may be considered for the Union budget,” said a NITI Aayog member.
This story is from the July 07, 2019 edition of THE WEEK.
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This story is from the July 07, 2019 edition of THE WEEK.
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