Budget 2024: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Tuesday addressed a CII post-Budget 2024 conference, stating that in 10 years, his government has tripled India’s Budget. The last Budget presented by the Manmohan Singh government in 2014 was of Rs 16 lakh crore. Ten years later, the Union Budget 2024 presented by us a few days ago is Rs 48 lakh crore, which is three times, Modi said.
Modi also said that the capital expenditure allocation under his governments has grown manifold.
"Capital expenditure is called the biggest productive medium of resource investment," he said at the ‘Journey Towards Viksit Bharat: A Post Union Budget 2024-25' conference. In 2004, the capex allocation of UPA’s first Budget was Rs 90,000 crore. This increased to only Rs 2 lakh crore in the last UPA budget in 2014, Modi said. At present the capex allocation is over Rs 11 lakh crore, Modi added. Modi pointed out that the capex allocation of railways and highways has become 8 times under his government.
PM Modi said that India, which is currently the world’s fifth largest economy, will soon become the third largest. He also noted the time when India had been ranked among the ‘Fragile Five’ economies in the world. Modi said that his governments have progressively helped India move from a state of vulnerability to a place of strength.
PM Modi also said that in a world where most economies are struggling with low growth and high inflation, India stands out as an economy which is seeing high economic growth and low inflation. He also said that India's fiscal prudence has become an example for the world to see.
Modi spoke of the government's initiatives to transform the manufacturing sector of the economy with steps like 'Make in India', Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, liberalisation of FDI norms, setting up of multi-modal logistics hubs.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the first Union Budget of the newly elected NDA government on July 23, 2024.