The Union Budget for 2025, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, marks a critical milestone in India’s economic trajectory. As the first full-year budget of the government following its re-election, this budget sets the course for India’s sustained growth and development. It lays down a comprehensive roadmap that emphasizes stability, inclusivity, and forward-looking reforms to strengthen the economic framework of the nation.

With the economy in dire straits, all eyes were on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman who had presented her second budget today. While corporate had their own long wish list from Budget 2020, income tax payers, too, had their own demands. The Union Budget 2020 aimed to boost infrastructure, technology and foreign investment against the backdrop of a slowing economy, weak consumption demand, rural distress and lack of private investment.

It was the third time Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was presenting the Union Budget but it was not a clinch this year for her. With economic growth currently at a 10-year low, widening fiscal deficit, and inflation at its highest, Madam Finance Minister had a difficult task to manage to steer the economy back on the growth track that has been marred by the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the fourth straight time that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget which is touted to be her shortest speech. For second year running, the Budget was presented under the shadow of the Global Covid-19 pandemic. These have been difficult times for the world economy. It is not just about the immediate disruptions and uncertainty caused by repeated waves of the pandemic, but also the longer-term uncertainty about the post-Covid world due to accelerated shifts in technology, consumer behaviour, supply-chains, geo- politics, climate change and a host of other factors. Not only are these individual factors difficult to forecast, the impact of their interactions are fundamentally unpredictable.