The Narendra Modi government projected a fiscal deficit target of 3.4 per cent of GDP and announced a direct cash income scheme for farmers as presented the last Budget of its five-year tenure, keeping in line with analysts' expectations of scheme to ease rural distress.
“If we had not controlled inflation our families would have been spending 35-40 per cent more on daily use items. This government has broken the back of back-breaking inflation," said Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in his Budget speech in the Lok Sabha.
"India has been recognised as brightest spot in the world in last 5 years. We are moving towards realising New India by 2022." "We have got decisive mandate to continue structured reforms. We have reversed policy paralysis," he said.
Stung by Opposition victories in three state polls last year, and needing to call Lok Sabha elections by May, Prime Minister Modi is facing growing discontent over depressed farm incomes and doubts over whether his policies are creating enough jobs.
India’s unemployment rate rose to a 45-year high during 2017-18, according to National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data that were not made public, Business Standard reported on Thursday. The assessment by the NSSO conducted between July 2017 and June 2018, showed that the unemployment rate stood at 6.1 per cent, the highest since 1972-73.
Presenting Budget 2019 in Lok Sabha. Watch Live https://t.co/n1e7PkYQUP
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) February 1, 2019
The Budget, which is interim and is likely to be followed by a full one in July, is expected to project economic growth of around 7.5 per cent for the next financial year, while expanding capital spending on railways, roads, ports by 7-8 per cent, and estimating an increase in revenue of about 15 per cent, according to a Reuters report.
But the main focus will be on the rural sector and the urban middle-class.
On Monday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi promised to provide the poor with a minimum income, should his party come power after the elections. The BJP has dismissed Gandhi's promise as an unaffordable gimmick.
Among the measures likely to be announced in Interim Budget 2019 for the farm sector are direct transfer of money to farmers like in the Telangana model of Rythu Bandhu, interest-free crop loan for those farmers who pay on time and zero premium for insurance of food grain crops.