Sobhan Kar, Bhubaneswar, 1 February 2025
Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, presented a budget today that means many things to many people or sectors. Hence, I would like to call it a “busy” budget.
The budget has made proposals for various tax reforms, including an announcement that a new Income-tax Bill would be introduced in the Lok Sabha next week. While that would be eagerly awaited, the concessions on the personal Income-tax front has drawn the loudest cheer from the middle class. Taxpayers earning between Rs. 15 lakhs to Rs. 24 lakhs per year stand to benefit the most. The rationalisation and the relaxation of the TDS and TCS procedures would provide relief to both deductors and deductees. The FM has also rationalised Customs Duty and GST that would help businesses.
On the federal front, Bihar has been provided with many big projects and funds to implement those. While Bihar needs such support, the FM’s largesse is clearly driven by politics than anything else. One must remember that Bihar goes to the polls in November! It is unfortunate that the newly elected BJP government in Odisha could not get anything significant from the budget.
The FM has announced a slew of measures for the infrastructure sector and one hopes that these are implemented well to improve the overall state of our physical infrastructure. Amongst these are announcements made to boost the shipping and civil aviation sectors. She also spoke about incentivising labour intensive industries with a view to creating employment.
The three biggest scourges of our economy today are unemployment, income inequality, and inflation. If this budget could reduce all three, then the FM would have taken a big positive step forward. Let’s wait for a year and see!
