Nirmala Sitharaman Must Budget for India’s Future
PM Narendra Modi & FM Nirmala Sitharaman
Union Budget in Spotlight for Shrinking of Aspirational Pie
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, January 31: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has emerged as a delight for meme makers and GST joke writers for viral social media posts. She is India’s longest serving Finance Minister in continuity.
The UK-based Financial Times in a report said that the Union Budget 2025 is most pivotal. A day before unveiling of the Economic Survey in parliament on Friday, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram shared facts to argue that India is facing risk to walk into a “Middle Income Trap”.
“I have said on many occasions that even if there were to be no government India will continue to grow by four to five per cent GDP growth rate. With 4.9 per cent GDP growth, China adds over $900 billion to its economy. India with about six per cent GDP growth rate adds little over $200 billion to the economy,” Chidambaram said, while sizing the government claim of being the fastest growing economy in the world.
The Census 2021 data will become available at an indefinite time. The authenticity of data made available by other means is regularly mocked at.
A large number of 56 lakh women in Jharkhand were sanguine about supporting state Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the Assembly elections. They were joyed over the promise of ₹2500 monthly direct benefit transfer by the Jharkhand government.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi claimed a record number of registration for DBT plan of ₹2100 for women. The copycat of the scheme is now a common across party manifestoes in many states.
The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) functionary Vrijesh Upadhyay expressed anguish at pharma major, Glenmark Pharmaceutical, laying off over a hundred employees with the help of bouncers. Several professional institutions in the national capital are without enrolments of students amid lack of employment opportunities.
The last Budget announcements for internships and training by private companies remain damp squib. The private sector is on a status quo mode per industry statements.
The windfall gains made by corporate through reduced taxes failed to create jobs or fire the growth engines of the economy. Private investments stay tepid.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s principal capital of an ‘aspirational India’ is now pining for government-assisted livelihoods. Serpentine queues running into miles for job vacancies by private companies affirm that the Indian economy is bruised.
The fate of youngsters is now at stake. They are toiling hard at studies in varsities. Their predecessors were condemned with low-income employment.
India on ‘Job Loss’ Path; Youth Unemployment Highest: Congress
They stare at prospects of walking out of college campuses when income is not only dipping but layoffs hogging limelight. In a span of a few months, coaching industry pioneer FIITJEE has gone bust.
If the Modi government fails to read the writing on the wall now, the opportunity may be lost for several decades. The fast-paced geo-strategic upheavals with serious consequences for the economy should be a wakeup call for the Modi government.
(Opinion expressed in the article solely belongs to the author)
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