The ‘halwa ceremony‘, which was conducted on Thursday, has marked the final stage of the Budget preparation process for the Union Budget 2023-24. The Budget preparation involves a significant amount of hard work and seriousness, as it affects every sector and individual at a large scale. The Union finance minister and her team is responsible to bring out the Budget. Here’s a look at the core team responsible for the Budget 2023 preparations:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
Being the finance minister of the country, Nirmala Sitharaman is at the centre of the Budget. She is the one who will be presenting the Budget 2023 in Parliament on February 1, her fifth time. Sitharaman has faced more uncertainties in the Indian economy than her predecessors P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee, which made her job more difficult.
Sitharaman is the country’s first full-time woman finance minister. She took charge in 2019 when the economy was already slowing down.
The past two budgets were delivered amid the coronavirus pandemic, which brought the economy to almost a standstill. This is the third budget after the pandemic and the first after 2020 that is coming when COVID-19 is way lower.
In the Budget 2022, Sitharaman focussed more on the infrastructure development in the country and the domestic defence sector, to offer a progressive blueprint of the Indian economy in the long run. Apart from this, capital expenditure also got a boost to support the pandemic-hit economy. She proposed no change in personal income tax rates or slabs in the Budget 2022.
T V Somanathan
T V Somanathan is the finance secretary in the government, the senior-most officer in the finance ministry. He is also in charge of the finance ministry’s expenditure department.
Somanathan, who holds Ph.D. in Economics, is a 1987-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre. Before taking charge as the secretary in the expenditure department, he was an additional secretary and joint secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office. He has also worked as Director at the World Bank on deputation as IAS.
The finance ministry this fiscal has embarked on a serious plan to cut non-essential expenditure.
Ajay Seth
Ajay Seth is the secretary of the finance ministry’s economic affairs department. He has a core position in deciding the Budget, as the budget division of the Department of Economic Affairs is the nodal body responsible for preparing the Budget. Seth previously held charge as the managing director of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited.
Seth is a 1987-batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer. He is also the central government nominee on the board of the Reserve Bank of India.
Seth served as Deputy Secretary and Director in the Department of Expenditure and Department of Economic Affairs between 2000 and 2004. He also served as an adviser to the executive director of the Asian Development Bank during 2004-2008.
Tuhin Kanta Pandey
Tuhin Kanta Pandey is the secretary of the finance ministry’s DIPAM (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management). He is a 1987-batch IAS officer from Odisha cardre.
Tuhin Kanta Pandey was responsible for the major disinvestments like LIC and Air India.
Sanjay Malhotra
Sanjay Malhotra in December 2022 took charge as the finance ministry’s revenue secretary. He is a 1990-batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre. Malhotra was working as an officer on special duty in the revenue department since October 2022.
Before this, he was serving as the secretary in the financial services department. He has looked into various tax-related proposals for the Budget 2023 and is also the ex-officio secretary to the GST Council.
Malhotra is an IIT-Kanpur alumnus and holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Princeton University, US.
Vivek Joshi
Vivek Joshi in November 2022 took charge as the secretary of the finance ministry’s Department of Financial Services (DFS), which looks after functioning of banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and NPS.
A 1989-batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, Joshi was earlier the Registrar General and Census Commissioner under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Joshi’s work, among others, will be to push the pending privatisation of two state-owned banks and one general insurance company.
V Anantha Nageswaran
V Anantha Nageswaran is the chief economic advisor of the government. He is responsible for the Economic Survey, and is also expected to give inputs to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget Speech.
Nageswaram, who holds MBA from the IIM-Ahmedabad and a doctorate from the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, has earlier worked with UBS, Julius Baer, and Credit Suisse.
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