NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the first Union Budget 2019 of Narendra Modi government 2.0 on Friday. This is also the maiden budget for Sitharaman, the second woman finance minister after Indira Gandhi in the history of independent India. The Railway Budget will also be presented Friday along with the Union Budget.
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The Budget speech will begin around 11:00 am with Sitharaman beginning it with an address to the speaker of Lok Sabha. Usually the duration of the presentation ranges from 90 to 120 minutes.
Expectations are high from the 89th Union Budget, especially after PM Modi's being voted back to power with a bigger mandate than his first term. As such, Sitharaman will have to do a tough balancing act, as she aims to boost growth.
Centre is expected to take a slew of measures to accelerate the slow economic growth and boost the job market in the country. The Centre is also expected to provide tax exemptions to millions of individual taxpayers, push tax reforms and address multiple challenges faced by various sectors of the economy in the Union Budget 2019-20.
The Economic Survey has projected India's growth at 7 percent in 2019-20 and that the country will maintain its fastest growing large economy tag in the world. The Finance Minister had tabled in Parliament the pre-Budget Economic Survey on Thursday, which was released by Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian.
