Presenting the Union Budget for 2019-20, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman used the first few minutes of her speech to emphasise how people had re-imposed faith in a “performing government” in the recently concluded general elections.
She spoke of how the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had gone from $1.85 trillion dollar to $2.7 trillion in the five years of the NDA government between 2014 and 2019. She pointed out that in the current financial year itself, the economy is expected to touch $3 trillion.
Sitharaman reiterated the government’s aim to grow the economy’s size to $5 trillion by 2024. Such an ambitious goal comes in a backdrop of a humble past when India required 55 years to become a $1 trillion economy.