Budget 2025: Finance Minister meets financial-capital market stakeholders, pre-budget consultation meeting organized

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday held a meeting with financial sector and capital market stakeholders as part of the series of pre-budget consultation meetings. The Finance Secretary, DIPAM Secretary, Secretaries of the Department of Economic Affairs, and Department of Financial Services along with the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India also attended the meeting. This was the seventh meeting in the series of pre-budget consultation meetings.

Every year, ahead of the budget, the Finance Ministry holds a number of consultation meetings with experts, industry leaders, economists, and state officials. The formal exercise for the preparation of the annual budget for the next financial year has commenced.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has so far held several meetings with various stakeholders including MSMEs, farmers associations and economists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also interacted with a group of eminent economists and think tanks last week at the Niti Aayog campus to prepare for the Union Budget 2025-26. As per tradition, the 2025-26 Budget will be presented on February 1, 2025.

The Budget of 2025-26 will be the eighth Budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. All eyes are going to be on the big announcements and the government's visionary economic guidance on the remaining tenure of Modi 3.0. This budget is to be presented against the backdrop of weak GDP figures and weak consumption in the economy.

The Indian economy in the July-September quarter of the current financial year, 2024-25, grew at a real rate of 5.4 per cent. Quarterly growth was much below the forecast by the RBI pegged at 7 percent. India's GDP grew at a slower pace in the April-June quarter of this fiscal year than the estimate by its central bank.

In its latest monetary policy, the Reserve Bank has projected India's growth estimate at 6.6% for 2024-25 from the earlier estimate of 7.2%. The Economic Survey presented in Parliament early this year had estimated India's real GDP growth rate for 2024-25 at 6.5-7% conservatively. It was also said at that time that market expectations were high. Real GDP growth is the inflation-adjusted economic growth.

The high-frequency Indicators of the October-December period of this financial year, 2024-25, are pointing to the recovery of the Indian economy from the slowdown witnessed in July-September on the back of strong festive action and persistent growth in rural demand. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported in its monthly bulletin that India's GDP grew by an impressive 8.2% during 2023-24 and it remained the fastest-growing major economy. The economy was projected to grow at 7.2% in 2022-23 and 8.7% in 2021-22.