Nirmala Sitharaman, a two-time Union minister, has entered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet for his third term in a row, setting a kind of milestone for a female minister. Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, who oversaw the finance portfolio during PM Modi’s previous tenure, is credited with advancing second-generation economic reforms.
The 64-year-old was appointed to the cabinet of Prime Minister Modi in 2014 as the minister of industry and commerce, and in 2017 he was given responsibility for defense.
Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman became the first woman in the nation to be handed full responsibility for the finance portfolio when then-finance minister Arun Jaitley became ill following the 2019 general elections. Previously, during her brief tenure as India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi had finance as an extra portfolio.
To support the economy affected by the introduction of the Goods and Services tax and the ban on notes, Ms. Sitharaman’s first significant reform as finance minister was a reduction in base corporate tax to 22% from 30%.
The following year, a number of policies aimed at the impoverished were announced as the nation combated the Covid-19 outbreak. A special economic package valued at around 10 per cent of India’s GDP, or ₹ 20 lakh crore, was unveiled by the government.
Despite this, the minister managed to turn the economy around from a roughly 24% contraction in the first quarter of FY21 to the fastest growing global economy.
She adhered to the path of fiscal consolidation despite fiscal expansion, and she was successful in reducing the fiscal deficit from the initial estimate of 5.8% of GDP in FY24 to 5.6% of GDP.
A record that has only been surpassed by former prime minister Morarji Desai was also set by her when she presented the sixth budget in a row, which consisted of five annual and one interim budget.
