ON JULY 23, when she tabled Budget 2024-25 in Parliament, Nirmala Sitharaman became the first finance minister to present seven consecutive Union Budgets, beating the distinction of six consecutive Budgets (1959-1965) held by Morarji Desai. He was then the finance minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. On June 12, Sitharaman took charge of the finance ministry for the second time, with the responsibility of providing a fiscal roadmap for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of a Viksit Bharat by 2047. The foundation towards the goal has been laid over the past couple of years though. In fact, Sitharaman will likely go down in economic history of the country as the only finance minister under whose tenure the Indian economy grew over 8% even as the global economy suffered massive growth pangs and inflation spiralled. India has beaten all estimates to register an annual GDP growth of 8.2% in FY24. The number showcases the robustness of the Indian economy, says Nirmala Sitharaman after announcing the FY24 GDP numbers. Sitharaman, expressing confidence that the momentum will continue in the third term of the Modi regime.
From a peak of 5.1% in 2022 in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, retail inflation in June, too, is near the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) 4% target.
The G20 finance track is another initiative that Sitharaman successfully steered in the last one year. The finance track has been vocal on reforms at multilateral development banks (MDBs). India pitched for capital adequacy reforms of MDBs, expected to yield an additional lending capacity of $200 billion in the next decade, which would help bridge the divide between the rich and the poor nations. — Ashutosh Kumar