Emphasis on capex is the highlight of Interim Budget: FM Sitharaman

The emphasis given by the government on capital expenditure and sustaining the pace of economic growth are the highlights of the FY25 interim budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. She highlighted that capital expenditure for the creation of public infrastructure is growing faster than the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

"With capital expenditure being in focus, in the last 3-4 years, we have made sure that our debt management is done in such a way that we honour the glide path for fiscal deficit that we had given in 2021," the finance minister said in reply to the general discussion on the interim budget.

Sitharaman was replying to the general discussion on the Interim Budget, Finance Bill 2024, and the interim Budget of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, 2024–25 in the Rajya Sabha. The Parliament later passed the interim budgets and the finance bill.

The finance minister emphasised that money spent on capital expenditure gives more return compared to revenue expenditure and added the government is making sure that the fiscal deficit is managed without hurting any projects.

"So public investment in infrastructure gives us greater returns," she said.

Besides, responding to criticism made by some parliamentarians on the reduction in budget allocations under various heads, finance minister Sitharaman said no major flagship programme has been curtailed nor has there been a reduced allocation.

Listing out the government's steps on ensuring food security, Sitharaman also criticised the global hunger index and said that it is not a balanced approach to measure hunger and "let's be conscious of it". She listed out the flawed methodology and the small sample size used for the calculation of the index in contrast to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which has a sample size of 6.3 lakh households.

She also informed the Rajya Sabha that the unemployment rate in rural areas has decreased from 5.3 per cent in 2017 to 2.4 per cent in 2023 and the women's participation in the workforce has grown in the past few years.

Responding to another query on the variation in the number of farmers being provided the instalments under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the finance minister informed the house that seeding of the land record with Aadhaar has been made mandatory and till now, only 85.5 million farmers have seeded the land and that explains the variation in the number of beneficiaries.