‘Prudence scored a decisive victory’: Anand Mahindra hails interim Budget 2024

Welcoming the brevity in the interim Budget speech delivered by Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha, Mahindra went on applaud its short duration.

For many years, I have been saying that we create too much drama around the budget and raise expectations of policy announcements to an unrealistically feverish pitch.

The Budget is NOT necessarily the occasion for transformational policy announcements. Those can, and should,… pic.twitter.com/hfqxnw4IUa

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) February 1, 2024

He further wrote, “No major tax and duty changes were announced. Businesses place a high value on stability and predictability and that was evident in this budget.” He also hailed the higher tax-to-GDP ratio in the last budget presented before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Sitharaman announced a Rs 11.11 lakh crore spending on infrastructure and vowed to continue reforms as she resisted resorting to populist measures in Modi government’s last Budget before general elections, instead choosing to stay on the path of cutting deficit while bolstering measures for focus groups.

Her interim budget for fiscal year beginning April 2024 followed the convention to remain a vote on account with no major policy announcement and no changes in income tax rates for individuals and corporates, as well as import duty, but offered amnesty for disputed income tax demands of the period prior to 2014-15 as a relief to small taxpayers.

Sitharaman also listed her government’s achievements across sectors in the last 10 years and announced measures to boost tourism, housing and renewable energy.

With inputs from PTI