Budget 2024: FM Nirmala Sitharaman promises ‘White Paper’ on what went wrong before 2014

New Delhi: Amid the Opposition attack over “mismanagement” of economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday appeared confident about the BJP’s return to power and sought to turn the tables on the Congress, saying their government will present a ‘White Paper’ to draw lessons from what went wrong before Narendra Modi assumed power ten years ago.

Presenting the Interim Budget, she said the responsibility to mend the economy step by step and to put the governance systems in order was “enormous” after the UPA government’s defeat and the need of the hour was to give “hope to the people, to attract investments, and to build support for the much-needed reforms”.

“The crisis of those years has been overcome, and the economy has been put firmly on a high sustainable growth path with all-round development. It is now appropriate to look at where we were then till 2014 and where we are now, only for the purpose of drawing lessons from the mismanagement of those years. The Government will lay a White Paper on the table of the House,” she said.

Officials indicated that the White Paper may be tabled in the Parliament next week.

She said “every challenge” of the pre-2014 era was overcome through “our economic management and our governance" and placed the country on a “resolute path of sustained high growth”.

This has been “possible through our right policies, true intentions, and appropriate decisions”, she said adding, in the full budget in July, “our Government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of ‘Viksit Bharat’.”

Her comments came even as the Opposition has been attacking the Modi government over price rise, unemployment, GST regime and charges of crippling Opposition ruled-states financially.

Senior DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran found fault with the proposal as he said, “one would like to know when they were in government for the past ten years, what were they doing.”

“The exemplary track record of governance, development and performance, effective delivery, and ‘Jan Kalyan’ has given the Government trust, confidence and blessings of the people to realise, whatever it takes, the goal of ‘Viksit Bharat’ with good intentions, true dedication and hard work in the coming years and decades,” she said as she concluded her speech in less than one hour in the Lok Sabha.

At the outset, she said the Indian economy has witnessed “profound positive transformation” in the last ten years and the people of India are looking ahead to the future with “hope and optimism”.

“With the blessings of the people, when our government under the visionary and dynamic leadership of PM Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014, the country was facing enormous challenges,” he said.

“With ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ as its ‘mantra’, the government overcame those challenges in right earnest. Structural reforms were undertaken. Pro-people programmes were formulated and implemented promptly. Conditions were created for more opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship. The economy got a new vigour. The fruits of development started reaching the people at scale. The country got a new sense of purpose and hope. Naturally, the people blessed the Government with a bigger mandate,” she added.