Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asserted that the NDA government has maintained fiscal discipline under its regime. She said, inflation has been kept under control and the food inflation has not crossed the acceptable threshold.

Replying to a discussion on Union Budget in the Rajya Sabha today, Mrs Sitharaman said, the nominal GDP of the country has increased from two trillion dollars in 2014-15 to 2.9 trillion dollars by 2019-20. The Minister said the GST collection has been consistently improving and one lakh crore mark has been surpassed in the last six months of current fiscal.

The Minister said, Industrial activity has seen a rebound and in November last year IIP numbers have registered a growth of 1.8 percent as compared to the contraction by 3.4 percent in October.

She also said, there is positive confidence in the Indian economy and the government has taken several measures to strengthen it. The Minister said, the global sentiment towards India is favorable and that can be gauged by investment flow.

Referring to opposition allegation that defence budget has been reduced, she accused the previous UPA regime of paralysing the defence sector. She also clarified that no resources have been cut down to any ministry.

The Minister also countered senior Congress leader P Chidambaram’s criticism of Union Budget saying there was more sarcasm than content in the former Finance Minister’s criticism of the Budget. She said that the present regime is certainly predisposed not to repeat the faulty remedies done by the earlier UPA government.

On GST compensation, the Finance minister once again clarified that all the GST collection arrears will be distributed to the states in two installments.