Top headlines: Budget bets big on growth, its finances explained in charts

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said huge spending on infrastructure and health care was a key feature of the post-Covid Budget. Read what she said in a post-Budget interaction

Budget bets big on growth: FM squeezes subsidies, raises capex again

Braving the inevitable questions that will be asked by the bond markets and by rating agencies, the government has bet boldly on a growth revival providing India with favourable debt dynamics going forward. The deficit itself has been financed not just through an unprecedented expansion of market borrowing — which will be at Rs 9.6 trillion next year — but also through dipping heavily into the pool of small savings to the tune of almost Rs 48,000 crore over 2020-21 and about Rs 40,000 crore in 2021-22.