Budget 2021: We chose to spend big on infrastructure, health sectors, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman
Speaking at the Finance Ministry press briefing later in the day, Sitharaman said the government has attended to the need of the health sector and a major boost has been provided healthcare, infrastructure.
FollowPost presenting the Budget for the fiscal year 2021-2022 earlier in the day, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said, "We have not lost the opportunity to clean up government’s accounts further."
Speaking at the Finance Ministry press briefing later in the day, Sitharaman said the government has attended to the need of the health sector and a major boost has been provided healthcare, infrastructure.
In this post-budget press conference, Nirmala Sitharaman talked about the need to give a "greater impetus to the economy" as said, "Budget 2021 comes at a time when all of us desire to give greater impetus to the economy, we thought this impetus would be qualitatively spent well and give the needed demand push if we spend big on infrastructure".
"If there are two important features of this Budget, it is that we chose to spend big on infrastructure which spans across roads, power generation, bridges and ports," Sitharaman said, adding,"the Budget comes at a time when all of us decided to give impetus to the economy and that impetus, we thought, would be qualitatively spent and give necessary demand push if we choose to spend big on infrastructure."
"As a second feature, I looked at the healthcare sector and even there, capacities for better health management had to be brought in due to what we had gone through last year," India's finance minister said.
While India battles coronavirus spread, infrastructure spending on health has been given a big push in this budget with a focus on the planning of block-level requirements.
"Our fiscal deficit which started at 3.5% during Feb 2020 has increased to 9.5% of GDP, so we have spent, we have spent and we have spent. At the same time, we have given a clear glide path for deficit management," said Sitharaman.
Accounting of government expenditure and revenue statements are now a lot more transparent and open, said finance minister.
On farm laws, Sitharaman said the government is and has always been open to dialogue with farmers. "The agriculture minister has been ready to have a clause-by-clause discussion with farmers on the farm laws. Hence we believe that dialogue is the way forward."
