Interim Budget 2024-25: Striking a middle path

Such prudence also seems to have influenced the Finance Minister's fiscal consolidation efforts

Independent India has by now witnessed the presentation of 15 Interim Budgets. Of these, as many as eight were presented soon after the general elections by a newly elected government. An Interim Budget on those occasions became necessary because there was not enough time for the finance minister to put together a full budget for the entire year and get it approved by Parliament in time. The remaining seven Interim Budgets were presented before the general elections and hence became an easy instrument for the ruling party to use the Budget speech to ostensibly secure electoral gains.
 

But this Interim