Interim Budget 2024: Tax rates remain the same, no big-bang announcements

New Delhi:  All is well was the Finance Minister’s overarching message in an interim budget that was essentially a patting-herself-and-the-government-on-the-back exercise ahead of elections.

To emphasize this message, she even promised to present a white paper on the mismanagement of finances till 2014. Nirmala Sitharaman also assured that she will be back with the full budget in July 2024, which she said she will lay the roadmap for Vikasit Bharat — a goal the government hopes to achieve by 2047.

The fiscal deficit for the upcoming financial year will be 5.1%, she underlined, which the opposition’s Manish Tiwari promptly latched on to emphasize the fact that we are looking at another year of high credit growth, something many consider undesirable.

There was no mention of the great jobs dilemma, but youth will be one of the pillars of the upcoming budget. So, we will have to wait and see if we can achieve the dream of growth with jobs in the coming years at least.

“A corpus of 1 lakh crore rupees will be established with a 50 year interest free loan. The corpus will provide long term financing or refinancing with long tenures and low or nil interest rates,” the FM said, adding that this measure will help in stepping up research and innovation facilitating the progress of the country.