Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday responded to Budget 2024-25 debate in Lok Sabha and slammed Opposition parties for ‘misleading claims’ that the Budget has provided funds only to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh and nothing to other states.
“If a state’s name is not mentioned in Budget speech, it doesn’t mean that no money is given to them,” said Nirmala Sitharaman.
Recalling that the UPA government budgets also did not mention names of all states in their Budget speech, Sitharaman said that she has 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? If they have stopped it, then they have every business to raise questions,” asked the Finance Minister.
— I would like to thank every member of the House who has spoken and taken interest in the Budget which has been presented here. I would like to thank the people of the country for giving this govt headed by PM Modi, a historic third consecutive term in office.
— We shall all work to build Viksit Bharat by the year 2047. The Budget 2024 is the first step towards Viksit Bharat.
— India is the fastest growing economy; has overcome after-effects of pandemic due to capex push.
— 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.
— FY25 Budget has not given lesser allocation to any sector compared to last year.
— No state is being denied any money. We are not depriving any state.
— Unemployment rate, for age group of 15-59 years has actually come down for J&K, from 6.4% in 2020-21 to 5.7% in 2021-22 to 4.4% in 2022-23.
— We have provided substantial financial support of ₹17,000 crore in the Union Budget of UT Jammu and Kashmir this year. It includes ₹12,000 crore towards financing the cost of Jammu and Kashmir Police.
— Agriculture had 0.30 lakh crore in 2013-14, whereas now it has 1.52 lakh crore. It is 8,000 crores more than last year, which is 2023-24. Education and employment had 0.85 lakh crore allotted in 2013-14, whereas today it is 1.48 lakh crore, 23% more allocation.
— The Budget allocation for the department of agriculture and farmers’ welfare was only ₹21,934 crore in 2013-2014. However, in 2024-2025, it has increased to ₹1.23 lakh crore. There’s a five times increase. More than ₹3.2 lakh crore have been disbursed to over 11 crore farmers under PM Kisan since its launch