Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Talks Economy, 100 Days Agenda & More | Exclusive | N18L

politic questions [Music] opposition B reforms bold reforms complete systemic reforms Min Ops NPS debate Ops npss just central government um employees Federation ofs session details of the UPS has come out so serious or sensitive M just traditional businesses trades list 2.2 training or internship m medium micro medium micro small medium Enterprises M problem liquidity ret personal loan roll back performance high level Nar set explation Chartered Accountants or tax experts or industry chamber of of Commerce Trey session indital gains or index Al proper indexation option no government has U-turn this is not U-turn I'm accommodating the

suggestion which has come from people request IND apprciate one one developmental activity then you seek permission from election commiss developmental activities National nationally avoidable expenditure Nationwide justan G mahila or yua so in Char division between one cast and another vot on specifically mention G uh I'll ask you a few questions on the economy since I have you captive today uh the GDP growth in q1 at uh 6.7% uh my question is is the economy slowing down you know it's easy to catch every month or every quarters figure and say it's not seven it's not eight

and then the reason for 6.7 had also come out the chief economic advisor has also mentioned that because of Elections the capital expenditure which was announced 11 lakh crores slightly over it didn't find much of an expenditure happening in the quarter 1 because every Department was probably looking at post elction time as a result the large chunk of influence or impact which could have been had because of uh the public expenditure was muted that's right and therefore to that extent it shows in the quarter 1 numbers but subsequently quarter 2 and quarter the coming I

mean we are in the third quarter the expenditure will pick up and that will um I suppose trigger the little slowing down that you suspect to move faster you know India remains one of the fastest growing economies of the world given given right now that you know there there is some soft GDP growth and the inflation is also moderate do you think there is a case for monitoring easing I'm asking for your view yes my view being said here will become Finance Minister expects RBI to bring it down I don't want to add to that

RBI is doing its uh full analysis and taking a call um and therefore I expect them to look at the economy as a whole both for growth and for inflation you know it's election season we have four state elections coming up I wanted to ask you a question around freebies How concerned how worried are you about political parties promising freebies you know prime minister was the one who really took this up spoke against the ravy culture in a big way but now I see that some of your governments are doing exactly the same thing you

know in m in Mad Pradesh we had L bahana now we have subadra that is being that is being announced tomorrow in udisha then again in Maharashtra how dangerous is this trend and what is your message of fiscal Prudence to the States look let me be clear I've been saying this uh much before the debate on the Lo saaba issues Manifesto Manifesto related issues came up every state and the center will have to look at the work um which is uh capable of being undertaken by every govern government meaning Center any party aspiring to get

to the center or aspiring for State government's positions we'll have to understand what that budget is capable of taking up will that state be in a position to undertake its developmental activities plus all the freebies and get it funded through the budget in the assembly get it clear in the assembly or in the Parliament and then announce schemes now what I find is when offerings are made free beats are given for tempation and then when States struggle to implement them because they don't have the resource they don't even have ways in which they can increase

their revenue then comes the problem classic example is of Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh where even without doing their homework they give a lot of promises look at what has happened between the two states in Himachal Pradesh what is the halad and this is not because I'm sitting as a BJP member or currently in the central government the state government themselves have been saying that they are just not able to cope with it yeah they can't pay salaries and and they were going to pay Ops pension old pension scheme they not able to pay current salaries

they offered to go through the Ops back again and Karnataka unbelievable number of promises and today the state government as the chief Minister's advisor and one of the chief ministers uh assistant and the deputy chief minister all of them said no we can't undertake developmental activities now what is that are we being responsible at all eventually you're as a government you're responsible to run the states and every one of them both Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka are raising revenues whereas the Congress president would look at the Prime Minister and say Global prices petroleum crude prices are

coming down will you not bring the petroleum prices down in your state you increased it only a few months ago even one month ago so constantly blaming and this is the another narrative setting business they'll go on asking questions whereas what they perform is contrary to it but a narrative so everybody joins the bandwagon do your homework before you join the bandwagon ask them the questions a state which was doing well Karnataka is now gone back a state which used to be the Haven of Tourism right Himel is unable to pay his own staff how

can you prevent this is there some way to you know I mean today what is happening to Karnataka and Himachal could well happen to the BJP rulle States as well you know one trying to outdo the other in announcing sort of freebies so is there any other solution to it it could the EC intervene is there some kind of something that the Judiciary could do uh just just parties themselves will have to be a lot more responsible looking at what they can fund and what they cannot and if they want to fund it it can't

be at others cost I want to fund it but Modi is not giving me the funds for it is a bad logic you are talking about narrative setting uh you know the opposition has accused you of jobless growth they've talked about grony capitalism you know recently Rahul Gandhi in the US also says that your government has ignored manufacturing how do you react to something like this you know it's very difficult to react to Rahul Gandhi not because he says things with content I think in spite of being and despite becoming the leader of opposition he's

still talking as though he can be careless and just throw anything at the ruling party and get away with it as a leader of opposition unless he's going to acquire some uh you know seriousness about the kind of issues he's talking both in in India and abroad I'm sure the people of India also will become hopeless about him I'm sure he doesn't want that he's also said that elections are not free but controlled after his performance uh really was much better this elections you know seats doubl to 99 to 99 how do you see that

he wouldn't say that when he wins the election in some of the States you know know uh I'm sorry Rahul G media seems to just do this business of asking questions of us for all the inconsistencies for all the hypocrisies and for all the double speak I'd like to see one day honest media asking questions of the congress party don't tell me don't shoot the messenger don't tell me we are only The Messengers we ask these questions not a day have I found any media having a serious conversation with Rahul Gandhi or any of the

Congress party's leader but that's not to say you're not capable of doing it you're probably avoiding a situation where they will embarrass you and the rest of the media because they're going to just be on your face speaking falsehood so this is what one has to expose about the congress party when results are in their favor everything is good when BJP wins the election elections are not fair till before the election results came Election Commission was accused when the election results came and they just managed to touch a 100 and nowh where they together you

know able to reach to 40 uh that 100 excited them then Election Commission is not wrong what are all these do you want to take a leader of opposition seriously or not is does this country deserve a serious opposition I thought the outcome of 2024 before election was that the government of the day will have to get going with a lot more work and the opposition was given a bit more stature with a decent number to go sit in the opposition and do the job of the opposition no we are excited about it and we'll

go around the world speaking against the country and somebody of course nowadays it's a world of social media everybody puts things out even Mrs Gandhi wouldn't want to do it outside the country here we go but we sit and accuse the country for everything going out speaking of people in social media talking against the country do you Nala feel that there is some kind of you send some kind of international conspiracy to bring down the Modi government all over the world there is this attempt to change regimes all over the world this year particularly you

see there are 50 countries going 48 to 50 countries going to the election yes the narrative in each of the country is this everybody who's in serious politics running political parties are all saying are we having our Democratic process working within this country or are we having Democratic processes being influenced by something else or when you say something else or somebody else it's not a direct participation there are people within their respective countries who play this role happily but that is where I think democracies will have to now look at how to handle this situation

in a more matured fashion thank you n I'll just move to uh Equity markets you know a bike showroom recently uh was uh the IPO of a bike showroom was over subscribed 400 times you know that of a mattress company was over subscribed thousand times you know the equity markets today are at an alltime high you know uh what is your view on the state of play of equity markets today and what is your advice to day Traders well I'll first of all say we'll have to encourage the markets to be robust no doubt but

uh particularly when speculative activities are too much they needs to have a sense of caution in our minds we we need to have it and we also need to make sure that uh people with their savings don't to don't go to engage Eng in high fluctuating or high risk Ventures no harm in participating in fno or no harm in going and investing in the equity Market but eventually we need to be using financial information authentic information before we take a call I asked this question with a little bit of care you know I I I

think that you know I sense that the RBI is concerned about the lending spree by you know these fintech companies I also see uh sebbi concerned about discount broker zero broking you know so in that context is there some kind of a bubble building up is there irrational exuberance happening that's exactly what the Sabi SE um referred to and I have also remotely once mentioned about it there needs to be a bit of caution on it but that's not to suffocate the market that's not to suffocate people who want to uh go and uh you

know engage themselves there it's not at all to but it also is a note of caution so that people don't end up losing money sure uh which they don't go to actually but understand the full risk and then engage okay Finance Minister Miss Madu Puri buge was one of the rare pedigreed professionals from the private sector who got drafted into the government into this regulatory role as SE chairman uh what is your assessment of the situation involving mad Puri BGE well um I think quite a few of U the allegations are being answered by her

and uh by her husband I think also both of them together are defending themselves and uh putting out facts to uh contradict those which are being alleged by the congress party um so I think the facts will have to be taken on board and are you satisfied with her answers well I'm not here to judge that okay a question that uh everyone wants an answer from you can income tax payers expect a lowering of income tax rates you know the middle class has been expecting this directionally how do you see this going forward uh when

will the internal committee's report on the review of income tax act be ready Rahul I want to take this opportunity to explain a few things sure since 2019 the attempt has been to simplify the direct taxation the attempt has has been to make sure that we make the whole process simpler and that is why after much of a discussion a new regime was brought in wherein right from the beginning the rates were kept low and we gave the option to the sesses that if they want with exemption a regime so that they think they've made

long-term plans for you know taking insurance cover or for the Emi and therefore they need their exemptions they could continue with the old scheme the new scheme was without any exemptions it was first without standard deduction and later again when we heard people's voice voices we we brought in the standard deduction as well now during the wot on account again lot of cons consultation not widely as much as the whole uh what do you call General budget uh time consultations happen but July budget we had again had a lot of discussions and brought the rates

down for middle class in fact people with higher income brackets were pushed up towards the lower rates right not one rate was increased and the standard deduction for the new regime was increased from 50 to 75,000 so if anything keeping the middle class in mind honorable prime minister had in July budget said that the rates be brought down and more slightly higher income also get covered under the Lesser rates so keeping in mind the middle class is what we have done through the new regime both in terms of increasing the standard deduction and in terms

of bringing the rates down now there are very many other things that we are doing for the middle class as well yes now I understand there are people middle class who feel that the rate reduction with which is happening for the new scheme should also be available for the old the enhancement in the standard deduction which is offered for the new should also apply to the old the new regime was brought in consciously to simplify reduce and make it easy for complying the income tax manual is like this you have to search for everything every

provision yes we wanted to simplify that all the exemptions and the provisions which are given for it will have to be removed and therefore we brought the new regime so I would humbly request that the and again it's not as if we brought something and we're talking about it more than 78% people have moved from the old to the new regime yes which means people are seeing the point of being in the new regime although we are not compelling anyone to come from the old regime to the new so keeping in mind the middle class

for rate reduction for better standard deduction because the uniqueness of uh income tax not just in India anywhere is when you give a certain income bracket a certain rate suppose you say 0 to 5 lakhs no tax n that up to 5 lakhs you don't need to pay a tax is not just for those who are earning 5 lakh it will apply to the first five lakh of a person who is earning 150 lakhs also so it is a benefit given keeping in mind the poor the middle class but it'll apply to anyone who's got

higher naturally That's the Law of the country and that's the you know um a common sense argument so that benefit given to a middle class will also fill in into everybody's income who is in the higher net worth also so that is why the exemption standard deduction has been increased which will be only for the salar class so we are looking at various ways in which the middle class will be given the benefit and the up higher net worth are not getting benefit because of that and therefore you know we let them go simply that

doesn't happen so the ways in which we are bringing these you know reductions to benefit the middle class are being carefully looked into and only then we are taking a call and now up to 7 lakhs there is no tax to pay GST was one of the boldest reforms of this government uh my question is that can we expect some more stability and certainty with GST rates in time to come you know World Bank had done a study of 115 countries almost 50 countries just had a single slab U you know another 30 countries probably

had a two rate structure but we still have five you know 0 5 12 18 26 so is there some rationalization that you looking at in time to come yes the uh the the group of ministers is working on it um about GST there are two things one to bring the Tak down further simplify it and put essential Goods into one category which the which is the lowest but the ways in which this has to be done will have to be decided by the group of ministers first and then the council which looks into the

recommendation all these are part of the uh simplification and rationalization of the GST Finance Minister quick Commerce is quite a rage these days uh you know there are new startup zepto blinket Wiggy instamart flip cart minutes you know does your party worry about the impact of this on kirana stores or the local ba which is your core vote base you know one of your cabinet colleagues had also said that 50% of retail Traders e-commerce is not a subject of great pride you know it could be some concern because there could be some social disruption how

do you see this phenomena yes it is important to take care of the small Traders the retailers not just because they are people with a lot of uh you know um membership and also Sympathy for the BJP not because of that this country needs that kind of support for small and uh medium Industries and for small traders in particular the retailers need all the help and where uh because of predatory pricing or de Pockets their businesses are getting affected we'll have to give a you know serious thought and the Commerce and Industry minister is fairly

ceas of ceased of this matter right you know next financial year the fiscal deficit Target set is 4.5% of GDP are you confident of uh being able to live within this target yes I'm confident and I'm hopeful Before I Let You Go just a couple of questions one on Tamil Nadu in 2026 Tamil Nadu goes to election State elections uh would you look at some kind of an alliance with AIA DMK considering that this time your Loa elections your performance was less than spectacular would there be a review of that well yes the central party

takes the call on alliances all over the country for every state and also for the national loab elections and so on even for the state election it will be the central party which will take a call on how what should be at all on the alliance matter okay uh do you think that the temples in Tamil Nadu should be freed from State Control you know considering you have a state government which does not believe in the existence of God uh do you think that that that should be done yes wherever temples are with the government

it should ideally be left to the um the deities and the devotes it should be managed by wellwishers devotees in the place rather than be kept in the government's control Finance Minister thank you so much for joining us you always are very gracious give us a lot of time answer all the questions thank you so much ladies and gentlemen a big hand to [Applause] [Music] Nala Manor [Music] [Music] for more news and updates all you need to do is follow CNBC TV8 on all of our digital platforms