The budget is often driven by ideological inclinations and political pressure to marginalise minorities for vested political interests. Nowadays the word ‘minority’ is rarely mentioned during Budget speeches, reflecting the nature of the Budget and aspiration of the government.
Observers assume that the biased stance taken by the ruling parties against minorities will lead to a narrow-minded, poorly thought-out, and hesitant budget for minorities. The goal of inclusive growth is hampered by eroding of social sector equality and absence of a welfare-driven budget.
The 2025 Budget, keeping in view the challenges we are in, should focus on addressing key economic challenges and unlocking opportunities for growth. Experts are of the opinion that the 2025 Budget should be inclusive, focussing economic growth and emphasising infrastructure development, digital transformation and sector specific reforms aimed at social justice and empowerment.
Dr. Ranjit Singh Ghuman, Professor of Eminence (Economics), Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, opines, “Union Budget 2025 budget may be a hard one, being the first budget of NDA-3. The country has been facing serious challenge on employment front. The extremely high rate of unemployment among the youth and the lower female work participation rate are other daunting challenges. Another important challenge to the budget is that of higher proportion of working-poor and lack of social and jobsecurity of workforce engaged in the unorganised sector, especially in the gig-economy.
“AI is an emerging threat to employment as it is not only going to displace significant proportion of workforce but render them irrelevant to employment opportunities. Skilling and reskilling of labour force is going to be a monumental challenge to the economy. The emerging distress in the rural society and the agrarian crisis leading to grave unrest among farmers and marginalised sections also needs to be addressed in a time-bond manner.”
Ghumanadded, “In view ofshrinking employment and decreasing rate of increase in income of farmers and agricultural labourers, the budgetary allocation to rural development, agriculture sector, MGNREGA and MSMEs needs to be liberally increased as raising the rural-income would result in a significant multiplier effect on the aggregate growth rate and thereby generate a favourable impact on investment and employment.”
Professor Furqan Qamar,former VC of Rajasthan University and Central University of Himachal Pradesh and Advisor (Education) in Planning Commission of India, said, “Put money in the pockets of consumers; lower tax burden on the middle class; increase demand; enhance social sector spending, particularly on health and education.”
Prof K. Srinath Reddy, former Head, Department of Cardiology,AIIMS,and former Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard, said, “The foremost priority is to increase the financing for primary healthcare in both rural and urban areas. The urban health mission has been far too long in cold storage. Augmenting the numbers and skills of technology enabled primary care personnel, along with infrastructure strengthening and provision of free drugs and diagnostics, requires a strong budgetary push.”
Syeda Hameed, former member of Planning Commission, has suggested that corporates should pay surcharge,and the government reduce simplify and rationalise GST.
Dr Rajan Sharma-MS (Ortho), former National President, IMA, said, “We have been demanding for long increase in budgetary allocation to around 5-to-6 percent of GDP.”
Targeted investments in healthcare, education, and rural development, alongside structural reforms, are essential to building a resilient and equitable economy.