Nirmala Sitharaman holds an important place in Indian political history as the nation’s first full time woman Finance Minister. When she presented the union budget for 2019-20, in front of the members of parliament and to the people of India; it drew many responses particularly at fuel price, gold and agriculture.
Recently in an interview, she shared her own perspective about the budget. Talking about the rise in petrol/diesel price, she said when there is a rise on a commodity’s price, there will be an impact on society. I agree to that but there are some who say ‘the impact could adversely affect the harmony in commoner’s lives’ and ‘why hadn’t you given proper thought into it before rising the prices’, I tell you, we give a lot of thought before an elevation in a commodity’s price is made.
We must think about how much oil is being imported into our country. The money we have should be used for the welfare of the people. For importing this oil, a huge fortune was paid to foreign nationals. So we thought if we could harness sun’s energy and also use electric powered vehicles in public transport system, then the reliance on petrol/diesel powered vehicles could be reduced. This could also help reduce the huge expense we make to purchase oil from abroad. So to bring such a transformational development in Public Transport System, this needs to be implemented. When people bear this, we could bring them the transformation.
Talking about the rise in import duty on Gold; she said when a jeweler imports gold, make it as jewelry, and then export it to foreign, he is bringing income to the nation by that. People who are into export-business will not be affected by the taxation. But when the jewelers import gold and sell it to people here, this import tax will have its impact.
Touching about Agriculture, she said that budget will facilitate the govt to adopt strategies; that by 2022, the income of the farmers will be doubled. Through electronic National Agriculture Market- E-NAM, the agriculture produce of farmers from the corner of the country could be sold to the other corner. (It must be mentioned that till June 30th 1.64 crore farmers have registered in E-NAM platform.) Through Zero Budget Farming , and via other means the income of the farmers will be doubled by 2022.