Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday chaired the pre-budget consultation meetings for Budget 2022-2023 held in virtual mode from December 15 to 22, 20201.
As per an official release by the Ministry of Finance, more than 120 invitees representing 7 stakeholder groups participated in 8 meetings scheduled during this period. The stakeholder groups include representatives and experts from Agriculture and Agro-Processing Industry; Industry, Infrastructure, and Climate Change; Financial Sector and Capital Markets; Services and Trade; Social Sector; Trade Union, and Labour Organization and Economists. Union Ministers of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, and senior officers from the Ministry of Finance were also present during the meetings. Secretaries of other Ministries, departments concerned participated through online mode.
The stakeholder groups made several suggestions on various issues that included increased Research and Development spending, infrastructure status for digital services, incentives to hydrogen storage and fuel cell development, rationalisation of income tax slabs, investments in online safety measures etc., among others.
The participants lauded the government’s efforts inefficient handling of the economy during the pandemic and retaining India’s status as the fastest-growing major economy.
Finance Minister Sitharaman thanked the participants for sharing their valuable suggestions and assured them that suggestions will be carefully considered while preparing the Budget 2022-2023.