“I have been picking up on Budget speeches since 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and so on. The Budget of 2004-2005 did not take the name of 17 states. I would like to ask the members of the UPA government at that time – did money not go to those 17 states? Did they stop it?” Sitharaman said.
She was responding to comments by several opposition members that the Budget has provided funds only to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh and nothing to other states.
Responding to a remark by TMC leader Saugata Roy that the JNU-educated Finance Minister is “bereft of new ideas”, Sitharaman retorted by saying that even the Chief Minister and Finance Minister of West Bengal have studied from the University of Calcutta (not from Harvard or Oxford). “I want to ask him, are they too bereft of ideas?”
“From the land of Bengal, which gave us ‘Vande Mataram’, today we have Professor Saugata Roy, who remarked that I’m ‘bereft’ of new ideas because I’m from JNU and not Harvard or Oxford… We’re all from Indian Universities, and I want to ask him, in what way, are we less than the Harvards and Oxfords of the world? Even he teaches at an Indian University. He should be ashamed of himself,” the minister said. To Roy’s remark on inequality in the country, Sitharaman said, “It is a shameful statement to make that inequality was less under British than now”. She said West Bengal’s share of the total Industrial Production of the country, which used to be 24 per cent at the time of Independence, declined to just 3.5 per cent by 2021.
She also said the government is complying with the fiscal deficit trajectory. It will bring down the deficit to below 4.5 per cent by 2025-26 from the targeted 4.9 per cent for the current fiscal. The deficit was 5.6 per cent in 2023-24. “I am confident of achieving this goal of 4.9 per cent”.
After Sitharaman’s reply in the lower House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on X, said, “FM @nsitharaman presents a very comprehensive picture of this year’s Budget and what it offers for every section of society. She reiterates our Government’s commitment to growth and reforms”.
Sitharaman said India is the fastest-growing economy globally and has overcome the after-effects of the pandemic due to heavy capex push.
The Budget has provided substantial financial support of Rs 17,000 crore to the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir this year. It includes Rs 12,000 crore towards financing the cost of J&K police.
“That’s the burden we want to take on our shoulders,” Sitharaman said.
Refuting allegations of the Opposition that the Budget has cut allocation for agriculture, health, education and other social sector, she said allocations on all these heads have gone up compared to the previous year.
Budget 2024-25 is a balance between social objectives and fiscal consolidation, she added.
Stating that fiscal prudence without compromising on welfare schemes is the hallmark of the Modi Government, Sitharaman said that Congress-led UPA used to do off-budget borrowing, and there was a lack of transparency in their budget numbers.
“Lack of transparency was there during UPA, not in the NDA government,” she said.
Giving a comparative analysis of the inflation management during the UPA versus NDA regime, Sitharaman said during the UPA regime, inflation was in double digits for 22 months. Domestic inflation used to be higher than the global average.
However, the NDA government has brought it down to 5.1 per cent in the last 10 years from 8.1 per cent during UPA’s 10-year rule.
On the demand for a legal guarantee on MSP, Sitharaman said it was UPA, which rejected this, saying that it may lead to distortion in the market. “Now, they (UPA) are shedding crocodile tears even though they have not done anything in their 10-year tenure or even for decades,” she said.
She said “whatever little” the UPA had done in the form of farm debt waiver was mired in “gross irregularities”, as pointed out by the CAG.
Stating that the INDI alliance is doing politics over the MSP, SItharaman said in 2007, the UPA government did not accept the MS Swaminathan commission’s suggestion of giving MSP of more than 50 per cent of the weighted average cost of crops.
It was the Modi government, which gave the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, she said, adding that a committee has been constituted to look at how CACP (Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices) can work better in the interest of farmers.
She said agriculture allocation was Rs 21,934 crore in 2013-14, which went up 5 times to Rs 1.23 lakh crores in FY25.
More than Rs 3.2 lakh crore has been disbursed to 11 crore farmers under the PM Kisan scheme, she added.