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Special Report

UNION BUDGET 2024-25
SOARING AMBITION

NEGLECTED FOUNDATION

Like the previous six Union budgets presented by her, Union finance minister
Nirmala Sitharaman's seventh consecutive budget has missed the opportunity
to make adequate provision for foundational literacy and numeracy and basic
education for India's 265 million in-school children

Dilip Thakore

L ONG-TENURED FINANCE MINISTER youth population streaming out of education institutions.

Media coverage of the budget has varied between som-
Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh con-
bre editorials and jokey coverage in dailies which report
secutive Union Budget 2024-25 has
only parts of the budget. To provide a holistic picture of the
attracted favourable comment from
industry leaders, academics, media
latest income and expenditure balancing act of the BJP/
pundits and the commentariat, and
since 2014, and especially to assess its provision for long-
brickbats from the rejuvenated op-
position party leaders. NDA government which has been in power at the Centre
neglected education and human resource development that
As usual, industry spokespersons your editors believe is the essential precondition of national
have lauded it. Especially for continuity and attention to development, we present a holistic overview of Union Bud-
macro-economic stability. They derive comfort from the get 2024-25. The objective is to evaluate the extent to which
BJP/NDA 3.0 government’s sizeable allocation for infra- it will enable high potential but chronically mismanaged
structure capex (Rs.11.11 lakh crore of a total budget ex- India to move towards attaining middle class nation status.
penditure of Rs.48.21 lakh crore), overdue attention to Although in India, the ritual of drawing up the annual
boosting the growth of MSMEs (micro, small and medium Union Budget is projected as an arcane and complex sci-
enterprises) and skilling India’s youth to prepare them for ence, stripped down to basics, the budget of the Central gov-
gainful employment. ernment (and state governments) is essentially an income
On the other hand, leaders of opposition parties who re- and expenditure balancing exercise, not very different from
ceived a new lease of life in General Election 2024 in which balancing budgets in households countrywide. As in every
the BJP’s brute majority in the Lok Sabha was reduced to household, the task of government is to do its utmost to
240 from the earlier 303 (and the Congress party’s tally increase income to fund expenditure. Except that unlike pri-
almost doubled from 52 to 99), have condemned Union vate households, by virtue of its control of the Reserve Bank
Budget 2024-25 for paying little more than lip service to of India, the Central government has the power to print ad-
inflation and unemployment, especially of India’s huge ditional currency unlimitedly, i.e run up a fiscal deficit.

68 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2024