The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present her first budget today. The Union Budget Speech 2019 is expected to begin at around 11:00 am.
Ahead of the Budget speech, the Finance Minister has handed over a copy of the Union Budget to the President. Finance Minister used a bahi khata (ledger) to carry the Budget papers instead of the traditional briefcase today.
Ahead of Budget 2019, Sensex back at 40,000 for the first time since June 11.
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics at the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli in 1980, Master of Arts degree in economics and M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi in 1984. She then enrolled for a Ph.D. in economics, but couldn’t completed the same.
On Thursday, the government tabled the Economic Survey 2018-19. It projected the country’s GDP growth for 2019-20 at 7 per cent, up from five-year low of 6.8 per cent, on the back of anticipated pickup in investment and consumption. The survey retained the fiscal deficit projection at 3.4 per cent of GDP for the current financial year, the same as in the revised estimate of Interim Budget 2019-20. The Survey also said that the country would need to grow at eight per cent annually to be able to achieve its target of becoming a $5-trillion economy by 2024-25.
