Budget 2024: Usage Of Digital Public Infrastructure Set To Explode, Says DEA Secretary
The DPI encompasses a technological framework that includes components like the Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface and various other elements.
An explosion in using digital public infrastructure is expected in the country, according to Ajay Seth, secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs.
The DPI encompasses a technological framework that includes components like the Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface and various other elements.
While presenting the interim budget on Thursday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the DPI is a new factor of production in this century.
"We should be seeing an explosion in using digital public infrastructures," Seth told NDTV Profit.
"We have been working on T-Rex platform, account aggregators, to make the lives of the MSMEs simpler," Vivek Joshi, secretary at the Department of Financial Services, said.
Seth underscored that an over 7% growth in the gross domestic product is a realistic number. "The government is very clear that there is enough space for private sector, and they are the primary wealth creator."
"The risks to the GDP growth are external to our country, regarding commodity and petroleum prices," the DEA secretary said.
The official said that the path of fiscal deficit was announced in FY22. "Government believes in taking on the challenge head on and have a lesser reduction next year," he said. "The choice was whether fiscal deficit can be better than 5.9%, which is why it's 5.8% (FY24)."
The Union government will target a fiscal deficit of 5.1% for the next financial year, with gross borrowings pegged at Rs 14.13 lakh crore.
Seth said it was not a surprise in terms of government borrowing. "It has to come down. This year, we are also seeing the borrowing come down in absolute numbers," he said.
The Reserve Bank of India is making norms for credit and unsecured loans for the extra provisioning by the banks and the non-banking financial companies, according to Joshi
He highlighted that the RBI circulated a draft paper that talks about constituting a committee to look into the tighter norms to make the financial sector more robust.