Union Budget 2022-23: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to begin the customary pre-budget consultation meetings with various stakeholders from Wednesday, December 15, 2021. The meeting will be held virtually through video conferencing.
According to reports, Sitharaman will hold first such meeting with experts of agriculture and agro-processing industry.
Agriculture Stakeholders To Meet FM
The first pre-budget meeting with the Finance Minister will be held with experts from the agriculture sector, followed by another meeting with stakeholders and experts from the agro-processing industry.
All meetings will be held in the afternoon due to the ongoing winter session of Parliament. Along with the experts of these sectors, the Finance Ministry officials will also be present with the Finance Minister in these meetings.
During the meetings, FM Sitharaman will be seeking inputs from various stakeholders, including industry bodies, farmer organisations and economists for reviving consumption and boosting growth hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pre-Budget Meeting with Stakeholders
There are less than two months left for the Budget for 2022-23 to be presented. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her fourth budget on February 1, 2022. The Finance Minister is also expected to hold pre-budget meetings with industry representatives, health, education experts as well as economists, trade union leaders, MSMEs as well as startups.
Every budget has been extremely challenging for Nirmala Sitharaman. She presented his first budget in July 2019 within two months of the economy being hit by a cut in corporate tax.
The General Budgets of 2020 and 2021 were overshadowed by the unprecedented outbreak of Coronavirus. The government had to announce relief packages with several announcements with the economy back on track. At the same time, special provisions had to be made in the budget to improve the health sector structure.
Reportedly, the Budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of demand generation, job creation and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent plus growth path.
Omicron Surge & Economic Recovery
The Budget 2022-23 would come against the backdrop of surging cases of the Omicron variant. However, impact of the new variant is likely to be less severe due to rapid vaccination.
According to a report by Finance Ministry, India is expected to be among only a few economies in the world to rebound strongly from COVID-19 induced economic contraction of 2020-21.
A monthly Economic Review prepared by the Finance Ministry states that real GDP in the second quarter of FY2021-22 has grown by 8.4 per cent YoY, recovering more than 100 per cent of the pre-pandemic output in the corresponding quarter of FY2019-20.