At the same time, while the finance minister’s statement is high on development ambitions, it was not commensurate with ambitious actions. It is a different model of budget in the sense that all finance ministers until now had summed up their presentations with a final sum up of the revenue and expenditures. Not really this time.

The finance minister has announced tax concessions and the finance ministry officials confirmed this in the post budget press conference.

Finance minister would state exactly how much she was giving away in tax modifications and how much more her tax proposals would bring into coffers. Thereafter, the deficits or surpluses and how these should be accounted for in the forthcoming fiscal year. It is difficult to get that glimpse from the speech itself.

Most strikingly, this is the first time the annual budget is unhinged from the populist rhetoric of poverty removal and the protection and uplift of the poorest. No anti-poverty programmes, special schemes for the weakest all much else formed part of the budget announcements.

Finance minister has claimed: “Close to 25 crore individuals have come out of multidimensional poverty through a decade of our Government’s sustained and reform-oriented efforts.

The government’s anti-poverty programmes now transformed into empowerment through education, so to say. “I propose to set up a High-Powered ‘Education to Employment and Enterprise’ Standing Committee to recommend measures that focus on the Services Sector as a core driver” she added.

This is reflective of India at the present juncture when abject large-scale poverty has been somewhat taken care of and India is moving towards a middle income country status. The finance minster was addressing the concerns of this next phase of India’s development.

But even in this scenario, Sitharaman’s budget speech this year is a very conservative statement, given the overall macro-economic scenario and comfortable price situation. Indian economy is growing by around 7% a year and inflation rate is below 2%.

The finance minister was in a unique position this year when she did not really have to be parsimonious about her proposals. There was compulsion for inflation management that many of India’s finance ministers had to contend with while preparing the budget.

Nor she was being besieged with spiralling prices which called for anti-inflationary measures and her hands were constrained by the inflation management.

In this overall comfortable scenario, the finance minister was extremely conservative. For example, she did not go for a major hike in the capital investment programmes for the forthcoming fiscal year. It could be that the finance minister’s approach to this budget-making was best captured in what the Economic Survey had already articulated.

The Survey had pointed out that the global turmoil was a matter of concern and therefore called for caution, “but there was no reason for pessimism”. So then, the finance minster has made significant announcements for technology upgrade to infrastructure creation. But she desisted from splurging.

The upward revision in infrastructure and public spending was marginal at best at just above Rs12.2 lakh crore, from around Rs11 lakh crore. This could have jaded the sentiments of the stock market which slid after the budget was placed.

Pursuing the ambitious technology upgradation goal for India, the finance minister made announcements which together hitches India to the next technological level. Sitharaman has announced a bouquet of measures for taking India into the new technology in step with the global developments.

Three of these are:India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 1.0 expanded India’s semiconductor sector capabilities. Building on this, we will launch ISM 2.0 to produce equipment and materials, design full- stack Indian IP, and fortify supply chains.The Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme, launched in April 2025 with an outlay of Rs. 22,919 crore, already has investment commitments at double the target. We propose to increase the outlay to Rs. 40,000 crore. We now propose to support the mineral-rich States of Odisha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu to establish dedicated Rare Earth Corridors to promote mining, processing, research and manufacturing. To enhance domestic chemical production and reduce import- dependency, we will launch a Scheme to support States in establishing 3 dedicated Chemical Parks.

New experiments for growth model are also being tried. A famous German economist had elaborated on cities and town being drivers of development and growth.

Finance minister, Sitharaman, has launched her own city centric development models in the budget with the announcement of cities as economic hubs for regional development. These cities and towns are to be joined together with dedicated corridors as well. She had provided in her budget speech:

“This Budget aims to further amplify the potential of cities to deliver the economic power of agglomerations by mapping city economic regions (CER), based on their specific growth drivers. An allocation of Rs 5000 crore per CER over 5 years.”“We will develop seven High-Speed Rail corridors between cities as ‘growth connectors”, she added.

No doubt Sitharaman’s budget announcements will attract the fury of opposition’s fire. There will be severe criticisms of the budget from all sides: from the politicians to financial market operators or industry. Certainly, the expectations of a pro-business and populist budget have been belied. But, as Dr Manmohan Singh had once said: “I don’t lose my sleep over stock market slides,” She might console herself with that word of wisdom from Dr Singh. (IPA Service)