Budget a blueprint for creating $5-trillion economy by 2025

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's maiden Budget is "mega investment-oriented" with a blueprint to transform India's economy to reach $5 trillion by 2025, India Inc said on Friday.

While Vedanta Resources Chairman Anil Agarwal termed it a progressive Budget, RPG Enterprises Chairman Harsh Goenka said it was a blueprint to achieve exponential growth.

Presenting the first Budget of the Modi government in its second term, she said the Indian economy, which stood at $1.85 trillion five years ago, has reached $2.7 trillion now, and is within capacity to reach $5 trillion in the next few years.

Agarwal said it was a progressive budget which focuses on core issues of health, sanitation, water, welfare of the people as well strengthens the foundation of New India that is prepared to ride the wave of mega technological changes.

"FM Sitharaman walked in with a red cloth bag carrying the budget vs the traditional briefcase.

What came out was a new era in Indian history – a union budget that didn't talk granular numbers – rather laid a blueprint for exponential growth!" Goenka tweeted.

Lauding Sitharaman, Biocon Chairman Kiran Majumdar-Shaw tweeted, "As a businesswoman I can't help but burst with pride to see a woman FM deliver such a confidence boosting budget 2019."

CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said the budget is a popular budget without being populist.

"It has announced initiatives which touch all segments of the society – women, youth, farmers, entrepreneurs, students and industry. It benefits both rural and urban India – all within the limited fiscal space available to it," he said.

Assocham President BK Goenka said Sitharaman's maiden budget is a mega investment-oriented initiative with a strong focus on scaling up rural infrastructure and demand along with a slew of tax simplification measures aimed at boosting growth and maintaining high level of fiscal discipline.

"This is a transformational budget, aimed at taking the Indian economy to $5 trillion by 2025," he added.

Goenka said the increase in the threshold for lower corporate tax of 25 per cent to Rs 400 crore annual turnover would encourage higher investment, which would also get a boost from proposals like further liberalisation of FDI norms in sectors like insurance intermediaries and aviation.