Budget 2025: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds pre-budget meeting with health, education sector experts

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman convened the sixth pre budget meeting with experts and representatives from the health and education sectors on Monday (December 30) in Delhi, ahead of the next Union Budget 2025-26.

The meeting was also attended by Finance Secretary and Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM); and Secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; School Education and Literacy; and Health Research; and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.

Tata Memorial Centre Mumbai Director Kailash Sharma; Public Health Specialist and Epidemiologist Dr Atul Kotwal; National Board of Examinations President Dr Abhijat Sheth; St Johns National Academy of Health Sciences Professor Dr Hari Mohan; Shri Vishwakarma Skill University Haryana Vice Chancellor Prof Raj Nehru; Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) Founder and CEO Ramya Venkataraman; Akhil Bhartiya Rasthriya Shaikshik Mahasangh General Secretary Prof Geeta Bhatt; ABVP National Organising Secretary Ashish Chauhan, among others, were who attended the consultation meeting.

In the meeting, the following points were discussed:

• Demand to reduce import duty on machines and medicines used in cancer treatment.
• Tata Memorial Hospital Director Kailash Sharma demanded reduction in duty on LINAC (linac, or linear accelerator, is a machine that uses electricity to generate high-energy beams of electrons or X-rays).
• Demand to increase expenditure on education.
• Issues of elementary child care, research, vocational training were also discussed in the meeting.

Earlier on Monday, Sitharaman, in a separate meeting, met representatives from various industry bodies. The industry bodies put forward a bouquet of suggestions before the government.

The Finance Ministry conducts several pre-budget consultation meetings annually with experts, industry leaders, economists, and state officials. The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for the next financial year has already begun.

Sitharaman has so far held a series of meetings with various stakeholders, including with MSMEs, farmers' associations, and economists.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also interacted with a group of eminent economists and thought leaders in preparation for the Union Budget 2025-26 at the NITI Aayog premises last week.
As is the convention, the Budget for 2025-26 will be tabled on February 1, 2025.

The 2025-26 Budget will mark Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's eighth. All eyes will be on the key announcements and the government's forward-looking economic guidance for the remainder of the Modi 3.0 tenure. 

With inputs from agencies