Ease of doing business, promoting domestic innovation and pushing up private investments could be key themes in the Interim Budget 2024-25.
According to sources, the Centre remains committed to boosting domestic manufacturing and it is accordingly looking at further increasing the measures for this. While the Budget, which will be presented on February 1, will outline its plans on these themes, the actual measures can only be unveiled in the full Budget that would be presented after the General Elections by the new government.
Sources said work on a refreshed ease of doing business is being done by the government with the objective to make India amongst the top investment destinations amongst large developing economies. The NITI Aayog is understood to be working on what else can be done in this regard and consultations with other ministries are also underway.
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It will also continue to work on boosting growth in exports as well as cutting down reliance on imports. More measures to spur domestic innovations and boost local manufacturing and private sector investments are also being looked into.
While a large number of measures on these themes have already been announced in recent years, the objective is to continue with these measures, as they would help sustain economic growth in coming years and also generate employment opportunities.
However, since the interim Budget is typically a Vote on Account, concrete fiscal and policy measures on these may only be unveiled at a later date.
D.K. Srivastava, Chief Policy Advisor, EY India noted that in 2019, when a similar situation had arisen, the main Budget was presented in the first week of July. “The Interim Budget, also called a Vote on Account, enables undertaking of expenditures at the beginning of the next fiscal year until the main Budget is presented. It is not used for the initiation of any major policy changes,” he said.
