Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the eighth consecutive budget on Saturday. The key document focused on the poor, women, youth, and farmers.
FM Sitharaman announced a new scheme for 5 lakh women, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes first-time entrepreneurs in her budget speech in the Parliament today. FM said, “This will provide term loans up to Rs 2 crore during the next 5 years. The scheme will incorporate lessons from the successful Stand-Up India scheme. Online capacity building for entrepreneurship and managerial skills will also be organized.
Further, the FM announced the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 programme under which nutritional support will be provided to more than 8 crore children, 1 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers all over the country, and about 20 lakh adolescent girls in aspirational districts and north-east region.
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“The cost norms for the nutritional support will be enhanced appropriately,” FM added.
The Budget 2025’s theme focused on “Sabka Vikas”, stimulating balanced growth of all regions.
Citing Telugu poet Gurajada Appa Rao’s line ‘Desamante Matti Kaadoi, Desamante Manushuloi’; meaning, ‘A country is not just its soil, a country is its people’, FM said Viksit Bharat encompasses: a) zero-poverty; b) hundred percent good quality school education; c) access to high-quality, affordable, and comprehensive healthcare; d) hundred percent skilled labour with meaningful employment; e) seventy percent women in economic activities; and f)farmers making our country the ‘food basket of the world’.