“It’s a balanced budget, focused on job creation”: USISPF President Mukesh Aghi on India’s Budget 2024

Commending India’s Union Budget 2024, Mukesh Aghi, President and CEO of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, said that it is a pretty balanced budget focused on job creation.

Aghi said that the focus of the budget is to bring the deficit from 5.3 per cent to 4.9 per cent.

“It’s a pretty balanced budget. From a macro perspective, the focus is to bring the deficit from 5.3 per cent to 4.9 per cent. So that’s a very responsible budget. The budget focuses on job creation, skills in attracting FDI to create more jobs…,” he told ANI.

He emphasised that it is important to understand that a big chunk of the money is allocated to first-time wage earners on a monthly salary basis.

“A substantial amount has been put into skilling a lot of people that’s going to help, because you have to understand that only 51 per cent of the graduates today are skilled enough to be in the workforce, and this was almost 34 per cent ten years ago,” he told ANI.

“So the government has made a lot of effort and progress, but I think we have to go beyond 51 per cent and that’s where the whole investment is going to take place. But more important is that by reducing the income tax on foreign companies by 5 per cent, that’s going to attract multinationals to come in and invest more in India,” he added.

Aghi further said that the overall objective is to bring the current FTI from USD 70 billion a year to USD 110 billion.

“So we will see substantial money coming in to create more jobs. So I guess it’s a balanced budget focused on job creation,” he emphasised.

Noting that in India, 65 per cent of the population is below 35, Aghi said that it is important to understand that almost 50 per cent of the workforce is in the agriculture sector, which is only producing 15 per cent of the GDP.

We have to basically make the workforce more productive, he stressed.

“We have to skill them so they can compete on a global basis. And that’s why a substantial amount of funding has been put in, trying to invest and enhance the skills, setting up ITI, and setting up other centres so people are work-ready and productive on day one once they graduate,” he said.

“I think the focus is job creation and that’s where the budget is focused on,” Aghi concluded.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her record seventh consecutive Union Budget 2024-25 on Tuesday during the Budget Session of Parliament. She makes history as the first finance minister to present seven consecutive budget speeches, surpassing former Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s record of six consecutive budgets as finance minister between 1959 and 1964.

FM Sitharaman, in her seventh consecutive Union Budget for 2024-25, outlined key priorities aimed at fostering economic growth and creating ample opportunities. The priorities include Productivity and Resilience in Agriculture, Employment and Skilling and services.