Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee says Centre's Rs 3000 crore Edu budget cut 'drop in ocean'

Weeks ahead of the Union Budget, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Saturday, stated that the Centre's plan to cut the education budget by Rs. 3000 crores will not result in a major saving for the Federal budget while addressing a press conference. Moreover, he pointed out that education is more of a state subject and that the budget cut in education. He also pushed for breaching fiscal deficit as it has already been breached by a huge margin.

Abhijit Banerjee on Union Budget 2020

Pro-people Union budget will be presented on Feb 1: BJP

PM Modi's pre-budget meeting

in preparation towards the crucial budget, PM Modi on Thursday chaired a meeting with various sectoral groups in a pre-budget exercise. He met various senior economists, private equity/venture capitalists, business leaders from manufacturing, travel & tourism, apparel, and FMCG, analytics, subject experts in the fields of agriculture, science and technology and finance at Niti Aayog. Pushing for his $5 trillion economy dream, he said that the strong absorbent capacity of the Indian economy shows its capacity to bounce back.

Big pre-budget Niti Aayog meeting; PM Modi & Amit Shah meet top economists

While Union Ministers like Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal Narendra Tomar, Secretaries from various Ministries and  Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar and CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant were present in the meeting, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman - who will be presenting the Budget was conspicuously absent. Apart from these ministers several economists, venture capitalists and industrialists were among the 38 delegates present. Previously on Monday, PM Modi met with India's top business stalwarts to boost job creation and ways to improve growth in the country.

Sitharaman's absence from key pre-budget meet shocking: Gehlot

Union Budget on Feb 1

The country is gearing for the Union budget which has been promised to be 'pro-people', heavy investment in areas like infrastructure, renewable, railways, agriculture, irrigation, mobility, health, water, and digital sector to be presented on February 1. Amid the heavy backlash felt by the government from Opposition and the public for the dip in GDP to 4.5% in the last quarter, the Centre aims to boost demand and revive the economy- introducing tax cuts and tapping the Central Bank RBI for an interim dividend to meet its expenditure commitments amid severe revenue shortfall, as per reports. Currently, the Indian economy is witnessing the slowest growth in almost seven years of 4.5% and is expected to fall next quarter before reviving.

In pre-Budget meet, PM Modi seeks focused effort from all stakeholders towards $5 Tn goal