Marching ahead

Union budget for the year 2023-24 was presented in the Indian Parliament recently by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

By SP’S SPecial correSPondent

In the 75th year of India’s Independence, the Indian Economy has been recognised as a ‘bright star’ with the economic growth estimated at seven per cent, the highest among all major economies, in spite of the massive global slowdown caused by COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine War. This was stated by Finance Minister Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2023-24 in Parliament on February 1, 2023. She emphasised that Indian economy is on the right track, and despite challenging times, heading towards a bright future. The highlights of the Budget are as follows:

Defence BuDget 2023-2024

According to the Budget papers for 2023-2024, the total size of the Defence Budget 2023-2024 is `5,93,537.64 crore – or `5.94 lakh crores for ease of reference. In 2022-2023, the defence budget allocation was `5.25 lakh crore which figuratively speaking implies an increase of about 12.5 per cent over last year.

A total of ` 1.62 lakh crore has been set aside for Capital outlay that includes purchasing new military equipment like fighter jets, submarines, warships, missiles and other military hardware. In 2022-23, the budgetary allocation for Capital outlay was ` 1.52 lakh crore although the revised estimates for 2022-2023 show the actual expenditure as ` 1.50 lakh crores. The Capital outlay of ` 1.62 lakh crore this year indicates an increase of ` 10,000 crores or 6.7 per cent over last year.

According to 2023-24 Budget documents, an allocation of `2,70,120 crore has been made for Revenue Expenditure that includes expenses on payment of salaries and maintenance of establishments. The budgetary allocation of Revenue Expenditure in 2022-23 was `2,39,000 crore, which indicates an increase of `31,129 crore in this year’s budget.

A separate amount of ` 1,38,205 crore has been allocated for defence pensions, which compared to last year’s alloca-