Priya Patel
TLDR: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Budget 2024 on February 1st, outlining key initiatives and allocations to drive inclusive growth and empower MSMEs, FinTech innovation, and women entrepreneurs. The budget highlights the government’s commitment to the tech sector and aims to establish a regulatory framework to create a more robust financial ecosystem in India. It emphasizes the importance of timely finances, relevant technologies, and appropriate training for MSMEs to boost credit disbursement and formalize small businesses. The budget also focuses on youth aspirations, entrepreneurship, and financial services, creating a corpus with a five-year interest-free loan to empower and upskill the youth. Additionally, the budget prioritizes infrastructure development, with an outlay for infrastructure being 3.4% of GDP, which will have a positive ripple effect on the entire manufacturing value chain, led by MSMEs. The budget acknowledges the benefits of GST and predicts the adoption of GST-based analytics for credit decisioning. It also supports women’s empowerment in various sectors and recognizes their crucial contribution to the country’s economic development. The budget aims to enhance the ‘Lakhpati Didi’ target to empower women and transform the rural socio-economic landscape.
