Nirmala Sitharaman's interim budget 2024 gets a big thumbs up from Anand Mahindra

The chairperson of Mahindra and Mahindra listed out reasons why he was pleased with the Union Budget 2024.

Industrialist Anand Mahindra on Thursday lauded the Interim Budget for 2024-25 presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Thursday.

Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (Bloomberg)

The chairperson of Mahindra and Mahindra took to X (formerly Twitter) and listed out reasons why he was pleased with the Union Budget. Hailing the Budget speech as "one of the shortest", he welcomed it opining that no populistic measures were announced.

Here are points that Anand Mahindra highlighted:

• “It was one of the shortest speeches—Brevity that is welcome and which communicates quiet confidence.”
• “No populistic measures were announced as has traditionally been expected in pre-election budgets. A welcome, and I hope, permanent approach!”
• “The fiscal deficit target was better than envisaged. Prudence scored a decisive victory!”
• “No major Tax and duty changes were announced. Businesses place a high value on stability and predictability and that was evident in this budget.”

In his post, Mahindra further wrote, "The really good news was the higher Tax to GDP ratio which has long been hoped for and which cements a strong foundation for fiscal flexibility and aggressive expenditure when it is needed. The FM can and should trumpet this more loudly…"

Mahindra concluded his post by saying that "now, we can focus on getting back to work and executing our plans efficiently while crossing the ‘Setu’ to a more prosperous India.."

In his post, the chairman of Mahindra Group urged the need to live within our means and invest for a robust but sustainable future. He said that with such approach, India will gain more confidence with global investors.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have criticised the interim budget. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor slammed finance minister's budget speech, by saying "not very much came out of it" and that she used "rhetorical language".