Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday held pre-Budget consultation with finance ministers of states and union territories (with legislatures) to gather suggestions from them for the forthcoming Budget.
“Most Ministers appreciated the Government of India’s ‘Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment’ and gave some suggestions for further improvement. The participants also gave several valuable suggestions to the Union Finance Minister for inclusion in the Union Budget for FY 2024-25, along with some State-specific requests,” an official statement said.
The meeting was attended by Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Chief Ministers of Goa, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim, Deputy Chief Ministers of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana, State Finance Ministers and other Ministers, and senior officers from the states and the central government.
During the key meeting, Sitharaman underlined the central government’s support to states through timely tax devolution, Finance Commission grants, and arrears of GST Compensation being provided for providing stimulus to growth.
Regarding the ‘Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment’, she stated that while most of the loans are untied, a part of it is conditional-linked to citizen-centric reforms by states and sector-specific capital projects and requested the states to avail these loans by fulfilling requisite criteria.
