Budget's main focus is growth; Mumbai should be liking proposals: FM Sitharaman
Mumbai (PTI): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said growth is the main focus of the budget for FY24 presented by her recently.
The budget proposals establish both fiscal consolidation and growth, especially inclusive growth, Sitharaman said during her maiden interaction with stakeholders outside the national capital since presenting the budget on February 1.
"Growth is the main focus. We want to sustain that recovery, sustain that growth," Sitharaman, accompanied by the top ministry officials at the outreach event, said.
She gave credit for ensuring growth to the people of the country, who absorbed the relief and policy measures introduced by the government since the onset of the pandemic to make India the second-fastest growing economy.
The finance minister said it was the "express desire" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue with the elevated public capital expenditure, due to which she has proposed a higher outlay of Rs 10 lakh crore under the head.
She also thanked the budget-making team for making it possible to devote such a high quantum of resources for the task amid the myriad challenges like the need for fiscal consolidation.
"Mumbai should be liking it (the proposals)," Sitharaman said.
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2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
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Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
