Budget Speech by Hon'ble Finance Minister

Budget 2017-2018
Speech of Arun Jaitley
Minister of Finance
February 1, 2017

Madam Speaker,

On this auspicious day of Vasant Panchami, I rise to present the Budget for 2017-18. Spring is a season of optimism. I extend my warm greetings to everyone on this occasion.

2. Madam Speaker, our Government was elected amidst huge expectations of the people. The underlying theme of countless expectations was good governance. The expectations included burning issues like inflation and price rise, corruption in day to day transactions and crony capitalism. There was also expectation for a major change in the way the country’s natural resources were allocated, processed and deployed.

3. In the last two and half years, it has been our mission to bring a Transformative Shift in the way our country is governed. We have moved

• from a discretionary administration to a policy and system based administration;
• from favouritism to transparency and objectivity in decision making;
• from blanket and loose entitlements to targeted delivery; and
• from informal economy to formal economy.

Inflation, which was in double digits, has been controlled; sluggish growth has been replaced by high growth; and a massive war against black money has been launched. We have worked tirelessly on all these fronts and feel encouraged by the unstinted support of the people to our initiatives. The Government is now seen as a trusted custodian of public money. I take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the people of India for their strong support.

4. We shall continue to undertake many more measures to ensure that the fruits of growth reach the farmers, the workers, the poor, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, women and other vulnerable sections of our society. Our focus will be on energising our youth to reap the benefits of growth and employment.

To know more in details, find the enclosed attachment