New Delhi: After a series of pre-budget consultation meetings the Finance Minister Nirmla Sitharaman on Thursday meets stakeholders in the financial sector and capital markets and discusses several issues.
This was the seventh meeting of the pre consultation budget meeting which was also attended by the Finance Secretary, DIPAM secretary, and secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Financial Services, and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
The meeting was part of pre-budget consultation meetings annually with experts, industry leaders, economists, and state officials. The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for the next financial year has already begun.
Sitharaman has so far held a series of meetings with various stakeholders, including with MSMEs, farmers’ associations, and economists.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also interacted with a group of eminent economists and thought leaders in preparation for the Union Budget 2025-26 at the NITI Aayog premises last week.
As is the convention, the Budget for 2025-26 will be tabled on February 1, 2025.
The 2025-26 Budget will mark Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s eighth. All eyes will be on the key announcements and the government’s forward-looking economic guidance for the remainder of the Modi 3.0 tenure.
This upcoming budget comes in the backdrop of weak GDP numbers and weak consumption in the economy.
The Indian economy grew by 5.4 per cent in real terms in the July-September quarter of the current financial year 2024-25. The quarterly growth was quite lower than RBI’s forecast of 7 per cent. In the April-June quarter too, India’s GDP grew at a slower pace than was estimated by its central bank.