New Delhi, July 16 (UNI) The preparation of Modi 3.0 government’s first Budget entered into its last lap on Tuesday with the customary Halwa ceremony taking place in the Finance Ministry at North Block in New Delhi.
The Budget will be presented in Parliament on 23rd July, 2024.
The Halwa ceremony was today held in the presence of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Secretaries of Ministry of Finance, Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC), and other officials of Ministry of Finance and North Block Budget Press.
At the ceremony, Sitharaman distributed halwa to members of Budget Press along with other staff of the Finance Ministry present on the occasion.
The Halwa ceremony is generally held 8-10 days ahead of the presentation of Budget in Parliament. It marks the commencement of the process of printing Union Budget documents.
“The Budget documents will be available in English and Hindi on the “Union Budget Mobile App” available on both the Android and Apple OS platforms after the completion of the Budget Speech by the Union Finance Minister in Parliament on 23rd July, 2024,” Finance Ministry said in a post on ‘X’.
The forthcoming Budget would be the first of the Modi 3.0 government and it is widely expected that the government would lay the blueprint for India to become the third largest economy in the world over the next few years and also a developed country by 2047.
In her address to the joint sitting of Parliament on June 27, President Droupadi Murmu had said that the Budget 2024-25 will be an effective document of the government’s far-reaching policies and futuristic vision.
“Along with major economic and social decisions, many historic steps will also be seen in this budget. The pace of reforms will be further accelerated in tune with the aspirations of people of India for rapid development,” Murmu had said.
Industry experts and policy-watchers expect the upcoming Budget to continue to focus on higher capital expenditure and take more steps to boost the manufacturing sector. The Budget may also provide sops and come up with schemes to push rural growth.
