Budget 2025: All Eyes on Nirmala Sitharaman After PM Modi Hints at Middle-Class Relief

Budget 2025: All Eyes on Nirmala Sitharaman After PM Modi Hints at Middle-Class Relief Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Saturday that the Union Budget 2025 will be "pro-middle class" and that, under the new tax system, there would be no income tax up to ₹12 lakh.

According to Nirmala Sitharaman, the new, "simpler" income tax bill will be unveiled the following week.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Union Budget 2025 aims to initiate transformative reforms across six domains: Taxation; power sector; urban development; mining; financial sector; and regulatory reforms.

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"Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. @nsitharaman interacts with the Secretaries and the senior officials involved in the Budget making process @FinMinIndia while giving final touches to the Union Budget 2025-26 at her office in North Block, in New Delhi, today," the finance ministry said in a post on X.

Here are some points to know before Nirmala Sitharaman's budget speech:

According to Sitharaman's Economic Survey, which was submitted to the Parliament, India's GDP for the fiscal year (FY) 2025–2026 was expected to be between 6.3% and 6.8%. It showed that India's world-beating growth is slowing down and that more work is needed to reach the nearly 8% annual growth rate needed to meet the Viksit Bharat aim by 2047.

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Expectations of the middle class are high after Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, for elevating poor and middle class.

"I pray to Goddess Lakshmi that the poor and the middle-class sections in the country are blessed by her," the prime minister said on Friday.

While seeking fiscal and administrative measures, the survey seems to be satisfied with India’s monetary policies that contained inflation, he said.

“Changing global landscape is increasingly challenging the external economy, and hence, we need to tread carefully,” explained the official.

The survey is concerned about net foreign direct investment (FDI) as outflow is more than inflows in terms of repatriation of profits and Indian investments abroad. “Currently, net FDI is positive,” he said.

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