The 2023-24 Union Budget will follow the 'spirit' of previous budgets and build on the template that has already been set, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.
The finance minister was addressing the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry's annual convention in the national capital on December 16.
"We are going to set the template which was set earlier but follow it and take it further for India's next 25 years so that in 2047... We look forward to our children living in an India which is 100 years free after the imperial rule but live in an India in 2047 which will be far more developed and a place where both our young and old can live together happily and in comfort," she said .
Sitharaman will present the Budget for 2023-24 in Parliament on February 1 with speculation going rife as to what the government will focus on at a time when growth is expected to slow down due to weak external demand on account of tightening of monetary policy around the world.
She had last month said the government would "continue to keep pushing on capital expenditure".
The Centre has set itself a capital expenditure target of Rs 7.5 lakh crore for 2022-23, up 35 percent from the budget estimate and 24 percent from the revised estimate for 2021-22.
Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran had cautioned last week that the Centre could not continue its capex spending at the same pace.
"It may not be necessary or may not be healthy for the public sector to keep expanding the capital investment at the same pace. Capital expenditure has to continue to increase, but not at the same pace because we should not only be not crowding out the private sector but ensuring that the combined investment spending by the public and the private sector should not drive up the cost of capital too much for the economy," he had said on December 9 at the Confederation of Indian Industry's Global Economic Policy Summit.