Indian Embassy in Oman praises new 2019 Union Budget

Muscat: India is on course to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024, thanks to the new Union Budget that is based on an inclusive and sustainable budget for the world’s fastest growing economy, according to the Indian Embassy in Oman.

An official from the Indian Embassy said: “The Union Budget for the financial year 2019-20, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament on July 5th, charted a detailed plan to achieve inclusive and sustainable development in the world’s fastest-growing economy. The Budget presented a progressive goal to achieve a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25, compared with the current $2.7 trillion.

“To achieve this, the Government of India is targeting annual economic growth of eight per cent over the coming years. This aims to establish India as the world’s third largest economy. Meanwhile, in the current financial year, Indian economy is expected to record a growth of seven per cent, following a growth of 6.8 per cent in 2018-19. The Government plans to achieve this by boosting investment, especially from the private sector, in all sectors of the economy.”

This will be achieved through a 10-point vision over the coming decade, which includes building team India with the participation of the people, using a form of minimum government and maximum governance, achieving green earth and blue skies through sustained initiatives to reduce pollution, making Digital India reach every sector of the economy to drive inclusive development, as well as launching aerospace programmes such as Gaganyan, Chandrayan and other space and satellite R&D and launch programmes

In addition, the government has planned to build all-round physical and social infrastructure to help maximise human potential, enforce water, waste management, and clean rivers to improve India’s Human Development Index, and introduce a blue economy that can serve as a growth catalyst to establish a $10 trillion economy by 2032. Self-sufficiency of food, as well as export of food-grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables and products, and the achievement of good health with the Ayushman Bharat programme are also in the pipeline.

India also plans to focus on MSMEs, start-ups and the defence, auto, electronics and medical industries under the Make in India programme.

In this context, Finance Minister Sitharaman had said: “The Indian economy will become a $3 trillion economy in the current year and is on the path of achieving the Prime Minister’s vision of a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25”.

The embassy added: “It took over 55 years for the Indian economy to reach $1 trillion, and in the last five years, the government has added $1 trillion to reach about $2.7 trillion. In the last five years, the Government initiated leading reforms, particularly in indirect taxation, bankruptcy, real estate, as well as those in the social sector to improve the common man’s life. Infrastructure and connectivity have also been revolutionised to drive growth.”

The Finance Minister added that between 2014 and 19, the Government of India has provided a rejuvenated centre-state dynamic, cooperative federalism, GST Council, and a strident commitment to fiscal discipline and set the ball rolling for New India, planned and assisted by the NITI Aayog.

Setting the pace for the vision for India in the next decade, the Finance Minister said that mega programmes and services which were initiated and delivered during the last five years will now be further accelerated. The Government plans to simplify procedures, incentivise performance, reduce red-tape and make the best use of technology to achieve the desired goals.

She stated that the Government recognizes that investment-driven growth needs access to low-cost capital. It is estimated that India requires investment averaging over $292 billion per year. Emphasising the substantial role of India’s private industry in boosting the economy, the Government has proposed to use Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to unleash faster development and completion of projects and to make available a blueprint this year for developing railway infrastructure, national highway grid, gas grids, water grids, i-ways, and regional airports.

In order to unlock the true potential of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), the Finance Minister said that strategic disinvestment of select CPSEs would continue to remain a priority of this Government, along with the consolidation of PSUs in the non-financial space. The Government is considering, in case, where the stake is still to be retained in Government control, to go below 51 per cent to an appropriate level on a case to case basis. It is also is setting an enhanced target of $14.6 billion of disinvestment revenue for 2019-20.

The embassy official said: “Meanwhile, to make India a more attractive foreign direct investment (FDI) destination, the budget said that FDI in sectors such as aviation, media, and insurance sectors can be opened further towards multi-stakeholder examinations. In the meantime, insurance intermediaries will get 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI), and local sourcing norms will be eased for FDI in a single brand retail sector.”