Union Budget well received by all sections of society, says Hardeep Singh Puri

Puri, who was in Ahmedabad to interact with intellectuals in regard to the Budget, told mediapersons that different sectors and salaried class have “expectations” from the Union Budget but the financial analysis is “done in totality”.

Puri said, “The Budget influences the economy in a big way. It is measured by the reaction of people and stock market. If the 11 budgets presented by the Modi government did not have value, our economy would not have come to the fifth spot.”

“There are expectations… If you work in a particular sector, you expect some relief for that sector; if you are the salaried class, you want some concessions there. But the direction of relief and revenue collection is different. Yes, we have some expectations but it is a continuous project. Individual tax slabs have been altered but the budget is analysed in totality,” he added.

Puri said the Opposition has been “misleading people” about the Budget being “partial to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh”. “It is a great fiscal consolidation Budget… I thought the reaction to the Budget would be good. And that is what has happened. Look at the stock market, it has gone up to 81,000 points. Some of our Opposition (parties) talk about interesting things. They say that we have only given (benefits) to two states…”

“But if we speak of Gujarat itself, the budgetary tax revenue has gone from Rs 59,981 crore in 2004-2014 to Rs 2,32,098 crore in 2014-2024, which is an increase of 287 per cent. Similarly, grants and aid to Gujarat has been increased by 340 per cent, from Rs 42,865 crore in 2004-2014 to Rs 1,88,487 crore in 2014-2024. Gujarat has also been granted the viability gap funding scheme, offshore wind energy projects worth Rs 740 crore and two semiconductor units, among others…,” he added.

“When the Opposition attacks the Budget over allocation to Andhra Pradesh, it should remember which government signed the States Reorganisation Act. It was the Congress government and it is a commitment to the state… Modi has declared a Rs 76m000-crore port project for Mumbai and all schemes for Purvoday include states of Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha,” he further said.

Asked about the letter written by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to President Droupadi Murmu, seeking her intervention to ‘restore civility and law and order in West Bengal’, Puri said the letter is an indication that “things are not okay” in the INDIA bloc.