As all eyes across the country are set to witness the Budget 2021 to be presented in Parliament very soon, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday moved for the House.
The Budget comes at a time when India has been battling with the coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic and the economy is reeling under the aftereffects of the lockdown.
Sitharaman will present the Budget at 11 a.m. in the Lok Sabha. The Budget is in a series of three-four mini Budgets presented during last year considering the pandemic. This would be Sitharaman’s third Budget under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Breaking the tradition, this year’s Budget will be unique as it will be paperless.
At the beginning of the joint session of Parliament on Friday, Modi had also said that the Finance Minister had already announced 3-4 mini budgets and that the 2021-22 Budget would be a historic.
After an estimated 7.7 per cent contraction in 2020-21, the Economic Survey presented by Sitharaman on Friday has projected that India’s real GDP would record a growth of 11 per cent in 2021-22. The nominal GDP growth has been estimated at 15.4 per cent, implying an assumption of 4.4 per cent inflation during the year.
Sitharaman had then asserted that this year’s Budget will “be a Budget like never before.”
It is expected that the Budget will help in revival by various sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare, rural economy and MSMEs sectors that faced the worst impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions.