Budget approved: Rajya Sabha returns appropriation and finance Bills to Lok Sabha

Parliamentary approval for the 2024-25 Budget was completed Thursday with Rajya Sabha returning the relevant pieces of legislation to Lok Sabha.

Rajya Sabha returned the appropriation and finance Bills for 2024-2025 after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman responded to the Opposition’s attack that the Budget was anti-middle class, saying the government had reduced the burden on the middle class.

The Upper House returned the Appropriation (No. 2) Bill, 2024, the Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (No. 3) Bill, 2024 and the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2024, which were passed by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

This completes the Budgetary exercise for 2024-25.

Replying to the discussion on the three Bills, the Finance Minister said the effective capital expenditure this year would be `15.02 lakh crore, an increase of 18% from 2023-2024. She said the increasing capital expenditure since 2020 had a bearing on private investment, consumption and exports.

She added that the Centre was not doing that alone, but was giving states 50-year interest-free loans, “which eventually will be treated probably as grants”.

She said allocations of `22.91 lakh crore were estimated for states in 2024-2025, an increase of `2.49 lakh crore from last year.

She said the government has simplified taxation.

“Compared with very many developed economies, which have actually increased the tax rates, despite the pressure from Covid times, we have actually reduced the burden on the middle class substantially,” the Minister said.

Responding to demands from Opposition MPs, including TMC MP Dola Sen and DMK MP Dr. Kanimozhi NVN Somu, to withdraw 18% GST on health insurance premiums, Sitharaman asked if the MPs had raised the issue with the Finance Ministers of their states who are members of the GST Council.

Read more at: The Indian Express