New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed a press conference after the Union Budget 2021 was announced earlier today. She highlighted the main focus areas and aims of the government in her interaction. ALSO READ | Budget 2021: PM Modi Lauds Finance Ministry For A ‘Pro-Active Budget’, Says Heart Of Budget Is ‘Health And Wellness’
In this Post-budget press conference, Nirmala Sitharaman talked about the need to give a “greater impetus to the economy” as said, “Budget 2021 comes at a time when all of us desire to give greater impetus to the economy, we thought this impetus would be qualitatively spent well and give the needed demand push if we spend big on infrastructure”.
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“We chose to spend big on infra across a wide variety of sectors. We have attended to the needs of the health sector, capacity building in health given a big place,” she added outlining two key features of the budget.Â
While India battles Coronavirus spread, infrastructure spending on health has been given a big push in this budget with a focus on the planning of block-level requirements.Â
Agriculture has also received emphasis with the allocation for credit flow through NABARD increased. “We are bringing in Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess through restructuring, without consumers having to pay more,” the Finance Minister said.
Budget 2021 also introduces reforms in financial sectors. These include progressive steps such as IPO of LIC, opening up of the insurance sector to FDI while the government’s disinvestment will continue.
Addressing the much-talked-about issue of bad loans she assured that the government has come up with a formulation to clean up Non-performing assets (NPA) in banks.
Development Financial Institution is being brought in to fund infrastructure requirements. This DFI will be used to raise about Rs 5 lakh crore in the next 3-5 years and the future for private sector DFIs was also mentioned.
“We have made government accounts more transparent. We are absolutely upfront with the fiscal deficit. We not only ensured repeated review of capital expenditure and ensured that spending was encouraged and not delayed,” Sitharaman said acknowledging the matter.
“Our fiscal deficit which started at 3.5% during Feb 2020 has increased to 9.5% of GDP, so we have spent, we have spent and we have spent. At the same time, we have given a clear glide path for deficit management,” she noted.Â
For Budget 2022, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit at 6.8% of GDP, from 9.5% of GDP in FY21. The aim is to further bring down the deficit to 4.5% by FY26.
Addressing the question about job losses, the finance minister talked about providing assistance to employers to be able to hire back employees who were sacked amid the Coronavirus crisis induced economic situation.
When asked about the farmers’ concerns, Nirmala Sitharaman urged those having any questions to come forward to address them with the government.
“On Farm laws, Government is and has always been open to dialogue with farmers. Agriculture Minister has been ready to have a clause-by-clause discussion with farmers on the farm laws. Hence we believe that dialogue is the way forward,” she said.
Prime Minister Modi had also highlighted the budget’s provisions for the agriculture sector which aim to increase farmers’ income.Â
“Farmers will get easy and more credit. Provisions have been made for strengthening APMC and Agriculture Infrastructure Fund,” he had said.
