Union Budget 2024 Live Updates: FM Nirmala Sitharaman reaches Parliament, to present Budget at 11 a.m.

Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Parliament on Tuesday to approve the Union Budget ahead of its presentation by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. - ANI

PM Modi arrives in the Parliament, ahead of the presentation of Union budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla reaches Parliament.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived in Parliament to present the Union Budget for 2024-25.Earlier, Sitharaman met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, ahead of the Budget presentation at 11 am.The Finance Minister left the North Block offices of the Finance Ministry with a copy of the Union Budget 2024-25 which as has been tradition, is in a digital format. - ANI

Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrives at the Parliament ahead of the tabling of Budget 2024.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, ahead of the Budget presentation at 11am in Parliament.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday left the North Block offices of the Finance Ministry with a copy of the Union Budget 2024-25 which as has been tradition is in a digital format. Ahead of the budget presentation, Minister Sitharaman headed to Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet with President Droupadi Murmu. - ANI

“The govt has been very steadfast in supporting the engineering sector, and we hope that in the coming Union Budget also, it will positively consider our suggestions given by EEPC India. Among the key proposals, we have suggested the restoring the interest equalisation to 3 pc, for the specified 410 tariff lines, besides raising the subvention rate to 5 pc for MSME manufacturers. EEPC India has also proposed that MSME manufacturing units partnership, LLP, sole proprietorship, these companies should be given an income tax slab of 25 pc with the condition that they plough back this extra 10 pc in the business, this will enable the MSME an extra cushion for expansion and to increase the liquidity.”

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman showcases tablet wrapped in ‘bahi-khata’-styled pouch carrying the Budget documents, outside Finance Ministry in North Block. Sitharaman has left for the Parliament where she will table the Union Budget 2024 later today.

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Benchmark indices have surged to new highs ahead of the upcoming Union Budget. Will the Budget keep the market momentum going?

A study of four Budgets tabled in July after the formation of a new government shows that benchmark indices, the Sensex and the Nifty 50, have fallen on Budget Day. However, post that, the rest of the year has always been good, with the benchmarks making a strong rally. Here’s more.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived at the Ministry of Finance ahead of the Union Budget presentation on Tuesday.

The Finance Minister was pictured wearing a white saree with a violet border as she arrived at the Ministry. - ANI

India is scheduled to unveil its first budget under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third five-year term. The budget is largely expected to be growth-oriented, with some measures aimed at addressing the rural economy. This is largely discounted. Any measure that disturbs the fiscal consolidation path or cuts capex for increasing allocation to revex or strong measures to hurt the capital market taxation could result in a negative reaction. 

Asian stocks bounced from one-month lows on Tuesday, with Taiwan’s semiconductor shares taking a lead from a Wall Street recovery.

Nifty closed lower for the second consecutive session on July 22 as traders reduced commitments ahead of the Union Budget on July 23 and investors parsed through corporate results. At close, Nifty was down 0.09% or 21.7 points at 24509.3. Nifty formed a doji like pattern on July 22 after recovering well from early morning weakness, though ending marginally in the negative. The Union Budget presentation on July 23 will likely create enough intra-day volatility on that day. Nifty could face resistance at 24661 and later at 24801 in the near term while 24141 could provide support on falls.

US stocks recovered after their worst week since April as investors looked beyond Joe Biden ending his reelection campaign to focus on the start of the tech earnings season. The Dow ended Monday higher by 128 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 closed up 1.1% and the Nasdaq gained 1.6%. Much of Monday’s gain came from a rebound in tech stocks.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present a statement of estimated receipts and expenditures of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for 2024-25 after presenting the General Budget of the year.This is the fifth Budget for the Union Territory after the abrogation of Article 370. - ANI

The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, introduced in 2021 for 14 key sectors to meet the objectives of Atmanirbhar Bharat, has attracted significant investments, boosted production/ sales and exports and generated jobs but the path to further industrialisation in the country has to be paved with deregulation, the Economic Survey for 2023-24 has noted. ​Read more​

Economic Survey for 2023-24 has made a case for higher level of private sector financing and resource mobilisation from new sources for India to continue down the path of building quality infrastructure. Read more

Economic Survey for 2023-24 has made a case for higher level of private sector financing and resource mobilisation from new sources for India to continue down the path of building quality infrastructure. Read more

Despite a robust 8.2 per cent GDP growth in the previous fiscal year, the Economic Survey for 2023-24 has conservatively forecast current fiscal economic growth at 6.5-7 per cent. 

India has made great strides in financial inclusion (FI), with the percentage of females having a bank account catching up with that of males, going by data presented in the Economic Survey (ES) 2023-24. ​Read more​

The conservative economic growth forecast for FY25, presented in the economic survey, has introduced some spikes in volatility ahead of the budget. Further, the below-estimated Q1 results from certain index heavyweights like RIL added to apprehensions of a slowdown in earnings growth in FY25. Although the budget is anticipated to be favourable, investors will closely monitor whether it continues to tickle traction, given high valuations and the risk of a downgrade in earnings

​The Union Budget 2024-25 is on the horizon, and with it comes a wave of anticipation​ for allocations and reforms from India’s agrarian community. There are numerous existing schemes, but their efficiency needs to improve. India’s agriculture sector growth was pegged at a 7-year low of 1.8 per cent in FY24, which lags significantly behind India’s overall economic growth rate of 8.2 per cent. That being said, the other sectors of the economy are growing at tremendous speed. Some reforms are overdue and need to be accepted by the agrarian communities. 

So Nirmala Sitharaman has remained unchanged as Finance Minister since 2019. She will present her sixth Budget tomorrow. 

This long stint raises the question: Why do prime ministers change their finance ministers? What must a Finance Minister do to stay in the job? 

There are some finance ministers, of course, who quit on their own. There are three in this last category that are prominent: John Mathai in 1952, CD Deshmukh in 1956 and Morarji Desai in 1969. 

Mathai disagreed with Jawaharlal Nehru on the setting up of the Planning Commission and resigned. Deshmukh was opposed to the bifurcation of the old Bombay presidency.

The full ​Union Budget​ for fiscal year 2024-25 (FY25) is likely to focus more on fiscal consolidation than populist schemes. Government officials said that this is critical in achieving a sovereign rating upgrade from at least S&P Global after a gap of 17 years.

​The interim budget projected fiscal deficit for FY25 at 5.1 per cent. ​It also reiterated, as announced in the Budget Speech for FY 2021-22, that the Government would continue on the broad glide path of fiscal consolidation to reach a fiscal deficit and to a GDP level below 4.5 per cent by FY2025-26.

​Better fiscal incentives, such as rationalising the tax structure, ​for pre-New Exploration Licencing Policy (NELP) and Nomination blocks can aid oil and gas companies in investing more in high-cost oil recovery technologies to improve crude oil production.

Pre-NELP and nomination blocks account for around 90 per cent of India’s crude oil production, which has been declining consistently since the last 10 years ending FY24.

Union Budget, according to Article 112 of the Constitution, is the financial statement of the Government’s estimated revenue and expenditure of a particular year.

The country’s first budget post-Independence was presented in November 1947.

Railway Budget was merged with Union Budget in 2017-18, ending a 92-year-old practice of a separate budget. A customary Halwa ceremony takes place ahead of the budget presentation, for printing of budget documents.

Pegging India’s economic growth estimate conservatively at 6.5-7 per cent for 2024-25 does not mean that Finance Ministry is pessimistic about the growth prospects, Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor asserted on Monday. ​Read more​

As the countdown to the Budget begins, experts and common citizens alike hold their breath, eager to witness the strategic decisions that could shape the future of India’s economic destiny. Will the new Budget be a catalyst of change, ushering in a new era of economic reform ? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the stakes have never been higher.

The country has come a long way from being a food deficit and importing country in the 1960s to being a net exporter of agricultural products, the Economic Survey said. ​​Read more​​

​​The agricultural sector, which is the backbone of the Indian economy. ​​has been through a challenging year. With monsoon playing truant, agricultural growth has diminished from 4.7 per cent last year to 1.4 per cent, which further added to the rural distress. This budget presents a crucial opportunity to address these concerns and propel the sector towards a brighter future. The government must prioritise agriculture and rural India, focusing on making farmers more resilient while simultaneously mitigating food inflation that disproportionately affects society’s underprivileged segments.

​​​On July 23, the Finance Minister will present the full Budget for the remaining period of the current financial year​​​. The Interim Budget was tabled on February 1. Although the budgets in the last two terms of the present government have benefited the country, yet the middle class, which mainly comprises salaried class and pensioners, expects some more benefits from the forthcoming Budget.

This piece suggests a few middle class-friendly proposals relating to the financial sector which the Finance Minister may consider.

​The first full budget of Modi 3.0 government will be presented ​on July 23, Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said in a ‘X’ post on Saturday.