Budget's goal is to propel growth, boost private investments: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the goals of the Union Budget 2025-26 is to accelerate growth, secure inclusive development, and invigorate private sector investments.

Replying to a discussion on the general Budget in Rajya Sabha, the minister also said the Budget was prepared during a challenging time, with serious external challenges beyond estimates or forecasts.

Despite this, the government has tried to keep the assessment as accurate as possible, keeping India's interests paramount, Sitharaman said.

"There are no models that you can build and understand how the trends will be because they are very dynamic... Despite that, we have tried keeping the assessments as close as possible, keeping India's interests as topmost...This immense uncertainty is still playing out and many Indian imports which are very critical for our economy to grow are also going to be left with uncertainty," she said.

The minister also stressed that the Budget has not reduced sectoral allocations and the effective capital expenditure during the next fiscal is estimated at Rs 19.08 lakh crore.

Sitharaman told the House that the first advance estimates from National Statistics Office (NSO) has projected India's economy will grow by 6.4 per cent in real terms and 9.7 per cent in nominal terms.

So for the Budget, "we have kept our goals" such that we are able to accelerate growth, secure inclusive development, invigorate private sector investments, she said.

The minister also highlighted that the government steered the economy very well during the Covid crisis, and the country emerged as 5th largest major economy in the world.

She also recalled after the global financial crisis of 2008, India was termed as among the "fragile five" economies.