The budget 2024, with its focus on 9 key priorities, aims to propel India's economic potential to new heights. A good budget addresses immediate socio-economic priorities while also laying out a strategic and comprehensive approach for long-term growth. The budget 2024 does just that. For me, there are four key take-aways as I go through the budget details.

 

Tackling economic issues
The two biggest issues among these are related to income opportunities and disparities in regional development. The government has announced a comprehensive set of initiatives to address these. Five schemes focussed on skilling the youth and enabling greater women work force participation have been announced; and a comprehensive package to support growth of micro, small and medium enterprises has been announced. These will certainly go some distance in creating the approximately 8 million non-farm jobs annually, that the Economic Survey has recommended.

Fiscal prudence & economic growth

The government has planned for an expenditure of Rs 48 lakh crore that is similar to what it had proposed in the interim budget. However, it is heartening to note a reduction in targeted fiscal deficit of 4.9% of GDP that augurs well for overall macro-economic stability and has a positive effect on India's attractiveness to foreign investors. The allocation of Rs 11.11 lakh crore for public capital expenditure has been retained, rightly so, to sustain the economic momentum while the private sector capex continues its upward journey in the next few quarters.

Sustainable future
The budget champions a sustainable future for India. Within this, a thrust to boost the development of supply chains ecosystem is evident, vis-a-vis emphasis on renewable energy generation and transmission infrastructure in previous years. The government has used taxes and duties as the lever for it - as duties on inputs and equipment that India needs to import to produce solar panels and cells have been reduced, while they have been increased on inputs for which there is manufacturing capability domestically. This will help manufacturers in India to access the technologies and inputs needed in the short term, while providing the necessary protection to enable the nascent industry to become globally competitive. The road map for transitioning the harder-to-abate industries from energy efficiency and saving targets to emission reduction targets will help kick-start the much-needed carbon market within India.

Next-gen reforms
Analysis by the IMF has shown that globally, including in India, productivity gains are needed to sustain the economic growth, which has been slowing down. The government clearly recognises this and has rightly placed emphasis in the budget on leveraging the emerging technology, trade agreements, labour market flexibilities. Accordingly, the budget's emphasis on next-generation reforms, focussing on land administration, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship, are hugely welcome.

Sumant Sinha(Founder, Chairman And CEO)