Union Budget 2023: Individual taxpayers can expect some relief

Experts caution that fiscal support alone may create artificial demand and jack up prices

The exercise for the last full Budget of the Modi government 2.0 has begun and its broad direction has been laid by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. She recently said the next Budget will have to be “carefully structured" to sustain growth and contain inflation. She noted that India's biggest concern is the high energy prices in the near future.

The retail price inflation has not come down to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s upper tolerance band of six per cent since January this year. In fact, it had stood at a five-month high of 7.41 per cent in September.