Budget 2024: Sankalp for an Unstoppable INDIA: Rakesh Nangia

Hon’ble Finance Minister, Sh. Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday presented the Interim Budget 2024 from the New Parliament building.

Reading from the ‘Bahi-Khata’, the FM underscored transformation-of-India with ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ mantra under the leadership of the Hon’ble Prime Minister.

Her speech began with emphasizing the importance of inclusive-approach with ‘Sabka Prayas’ that enabled the country to successfully overcome once-in-a-century pandemic, emerging therefrom with a renewed sense-of-confidence, and India’s unstoppable strides towards ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in the period of ‘Amrit Kaal’.

Working with an all-round, all-pervasive and all-inclusive (सर्वांगीण, सर्वस्पर्शी और सर्वसमावेशी) approach, she said that her Government is determined in laying strong foundations for witnessing a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047. The needs, aspirations and welfare of four major constituencies, namely, the Poor, Farmers, Women and Youth, were accorded highest level of priority.

While re-coining the acronym GDP to mean ‘Governance, Development and Performance’, she confidently stated that her Government provided transparent, accountable, people-centric and prompt trust-based administration with ‘citizen-first’ and ‘minimum government, maximum governance’ approach.

Speaking in a Global context, FM highlighted the importance of ‘India-Middle East-Europe’ Economic Corridor as a strategic-pillar and economic game-changer for India and the world. She quoted the Hon’ble Prime Minister to reiterate his prediction that “…it will become the basis of world trade for hundreds of years to come, and history will remember that this corridor was initiated on Indian soil.”

In view of the surging confidence of global-investors to participate in India’s growth story with anticipated 7% p.a. GDP growth rate, she said that bilateral investment treaties to accelerate ‘Foreign Direct Investment’ were since being prioritized on principles of ‘First Develop India’. It seems to be a clear extension of the motherhood slogan by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of ‘Make-in-India’.

Taking cue from the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s resolve towards “Jai Anusandhan” (Victory-to-Innovation), FM emphatically announced establishment of a corpus of INR 1 lakh crore for providing long-term financing to “tech-savvy youth” perpetually hungry for low-interest capital to fund their ambitious R&D needs. She conveyed in no uncertain terms that innovation held the key to India’s resounding success, and reiterated Hon’ble Prime Minister’s sentiment that “….There is no dearth of opportunities; as many opportunities as we want. The country is capable of creating more opportunities, sky is the limit… ”.

On the tax front, whether direct or indirect, no changes in law, rate or duty-structure have been proposed. Status quo has been maintained, as is usually expected from a ‘Vote-on-Account’. However, on the fringes, marginal extensions by an additional year (i.e. commencement up until March 31, 2025) are proposed in respect of sun-set clauses as they apply to certain specified-units commencing operations in the GIFT city, and also in relation to incorporation of companies qualifying as eligible start-ups. TCS provisions have been tweaked. In a gesture of generosity, it has been proposed that the Government will write-off arrears of income-tax upto a ceiling-limit of INR 10,000 or INR 25,000 pertaining to specified historical assessment years, which would potentially allow relief and bury litigation across 10 million small taxpayers.

Overall, the Budget speech resonated the mood of a confident and Unstoppable INDIA. Interim Budget was written with a firm-hand that appeared to convey the inevitable.

About the Authors: Rakesh Nangia, Chairman & Rajan Sachdev, Partner, Nangia Andersen LLP

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