New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, while responding to the discussion on Budget 2024-25, launched a strong attack on the opposition parties through figures. After the presentation of this budget, most of the opposition parties inside and outside the House said that there is a budget for only two states and the rest of the states were not even named. Nirmala Sitharaman said that the opposition is spreading the misconception that only two states were named in the budget and the rest of the states did not get anything. The Finance Minister gave the data of the UPA's ten-year budget from 2004 to 2014 in Parliament. Through these figures, she showed the mirror to other opposition parties including Congress. She said that those who are making these allegations also know what was in their budget.Opposition targets UPA government's budget
Citing figures, Nirmala Sitharaman said that in 2004-05, during the first term of the UPA government, the then Finance Minister did not name 17 states. Did all those 17 states not get money? Next year, i.e. 2005-06, 18 states were not named in the budget. Next year, i.e. 2006-07, 13 states were not named. After that, in 2007-08, 16 states were not named in the speech and then in the next financial year, i.e. 2008-09, 13 states were not named. 26 states were not named in the budget in 2009-10, 19 in 2010-11, 16 in 2012-13 and 10 states in 2013-14. If the names of states were not mentioned in the first and second terms of the UPA, did they not get the budget?
You have the guts to ask me questions… Nirmala targeted TMC
Giving the example of Maharashtra, the Finance Minister said that if its name was not announced in the budget, then was Maharashtra ignored. Rs 76,000 crore has been allocated to Vadhavan port. Targeting TMC, Sitharaman said that yesterday TMC questioned the budget that nothing has been given to West Bengal. Many schemes given by PM Modi have not even been implemented in Bengal and now you have the courage to ask me. The Finance Minister said that due to the government's better management of the economy and capital expenditure on infrastructure, India achieved high growth after the Covid pandemic and today our country is the fastest growing major economy in the world.
This time the education budget is higher than before
Sitharaman said that not only is our economic growth better but we are also on the path of reducing the fiscal deficit. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2023-24 has been 8.2 percent and India has retained the status of the fastest growing major country in the world. She said that we are moving towards the target of bringing down the fiscal deficit to 4.5 percent in 2025-26 under fiscal consolidation. It is estimated to be 4.9 percent in the current financial year. The credit for this goes to better economy management. Rejecting the allegations of opposition parties of reducing allocation for social sectors, the Finance Minister said that the budget document states the opposite. Rs 1.48 lakh crore has been allocated for the education sector. This is more than the previous financial year.
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