More Stories

Informist, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025

NEW DELHI – The Congress Saturday expressed its doubts over the government's capacity to achieve the capital expenditure target for the financial year 2025-26 (Apr-Mar). The Budget projected the central government's capital expenditure for the next financial year starting April at INR 11.21 trillion, up 10.1% from the revised estimate of INR 10.18 trillion for FY25.

"The capital expenditure has been increased by over INR 1 trillion. I doubt the capacity of the government to achieve this target. I'm glad that the finance minister has shred her faith in the astrological numbers," former finance minister P. Chidambaram said.

Addressing the media after the Budget was tabled in the Lok Sabha, Chidambaram said that the government improved the fiscal deficit from the 4.9% (Budget Estimate) FY25 (Apr-Mar) to the revised estimate of 4.8%, at a huge cost to the economy. "Those who did not believe us when we said that the economy is slowing down, I hope they will believe us now. Those who did not believe that the capacity of the government to plan and implement schemes has diminished, will, I hope, believe us now," he said.

Chidambaram said that the sectors such as health, education, social welfare, agriculture, rural development, urban development and the development of the northeast suffered major cuts in the Budget. "The cruellest cuts were in the allocation to minorities, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes," he said.

The Congress alleged that the finance minister and the prime minister did not care about the advice of the chief economic advisor. Contrary to the advice of the chief economic advisor in the economic survey, the Budget is full of new schemes and programmes, many of which are beyond the capacity of the government. The Economic survey had said that India needs to improve its global competitiveness through grassroot-level structural reforms and deregulation to reinforce its medium-term growth potential.

"I counted at least 15 new schemes and programmes. The finance minister is not willing to deregulate. She is not willing to get out of the way of people, especially the entrepreneurs, micro-small medium enterprises and start-ups," he said. He said the economy will trudge along on the old path and deliver no more than the usual 6.0% or 6.5% growth in FY26. "This is a far cry from the 8% growth rate that the chief economic advisor estimated in order to become a developed country," Chidambaram said.

The former finance minister also said that the Bharatiya Janata Party was wooing the tax-paying middle class and voters in Bihar.  End

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.