Government focuses on social inclusion, tech initiatives, and public investment
As she presented the Union Budget in Parliament on Sunday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted what she described as a major social outcome of the government’s policies, stating that millions of Indians have escaped multidimensional poverty over the last ten years.
“Close to 25 crore people have come out of multidimensional poverty due to the government’s efforts over a decade,” the finance minister said during her budget speech, underscoring the impact of welfare programmes and targeted interventions.
The remark came amid a broader outline of the government’s development strategy, which links social progress with sustained public investment and structural reforms.
Sitharaman noted that public capital expenditure has seen a sharp rise since 2014-15 and will be further strengthened in the coming financial year, as part of an approach aimed at supporting growth, employment, and improved living standards.
She also referred to steps taken to promote new and emerging technologies, including initiatives such as the National Quantum Mission, and announced the proposal for a high-powered education-to-employment standing committee to suggest measures for the services sector.
Taken together, the finance minister said, these efforts reflect the government’s attempt to combine economic expansion with social inclusion, with the reduction in multidimensional poverty cited as a key outcome of this approach.
Sitharaman on Sunday makes history as she presents a record ninth consecutive Budget that is expected to unveil measures to sustain growth momentum, maintain fiscal discipline, and contain reforms that could buffer the economy from global trade frictions, including US tariffs.
This will take Sitharaman closer to the record of 10 budgets that were presented by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai over different time periods. Desai presented six budgets during his tenure as finance minister from 1959 to 1964, and four budgets between 1967 and 1969.
Former finance ministers P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee had presented nine and eight budgets, respectively, under different prime ministers.
Sitharaman, however, will continue to hold the record of presenting the maximum number of budgets on the trot — nine straight budgets under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She was in 2019 appointed as India’s first full-time woman finance minister when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a decisive second term. After Modi came back to power in 2024 for the third time, Sitharaman continued to retain her finance portfolio.
