Finance Minister Sitharaman briefs BJP lawmakers on Budget, prior to party's outreach programme

New Delhi [India], February 3 (ANI): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday arrived in the Parliament to brief the Members of Parliaments (MPs) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the Union Budget 2023-24 presented in the Parliament earlier this week.

All Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs of the party are expected to be present in the meeting, being held ahead of today's Parliament Session.

Visuals from Parliament said Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Kiren Rijiju, Dharmendra Pradhan, V Muraleedharan and BJP MPs Sukanta Majumdar and Sushil Modi were seen arriving for the meeting.

The Budget, which in all likelihood is the last for the BJP-led NDA government before the general elections next year, was presented by Sitharaman on Wednesday, unveiling one of its biggest jumps in capital spending in the past decade with the Union Minister stating that the fiscal deficit would fall next year.

This marked the fifth budget presented by Sitharaman.

During her nearly one-and-a-half-hour-long speech, the Finance Minister announced that the government proposes to increase capital expenditure outlay by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore in 2023-24, which would be 3.3 per cent of the GDP.

The Budget Session of the Parliament began on Tuesday with the President's address, which was followed by the tabling of the Economic Survey for 2022-23.

The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2023-24 commenced on October 10, last year.As per the sources, the BJP is scheduled to launch a mega-budget Reach Out on February 4 and 5 across India to bring to the fore what the budget means for each and every citizen, cutting across age, caste, creed and profession.

During the programme, all the Union ministers will travel across the country for this budget and will hold a press conference on the budget besides interacting with the people across all stratas, including prominent citizens and intellectuals.

As per the sources, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur would go to Jammu, while Tourism Minister G Kishen Reddy would head to Kochi. Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, ElectronicsTechnology Rajeev B Chandrashekar will go to Coimbatore and Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Culture Arjun Ram Meghwal will travel to Raipur, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will travel to Bhopal whereas Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will go to Bengaluru. The programmes for other ministers are also being firmed up. (ANI)