Mumbai, India – Prema Salgaonkar wakes up hours before dawn and begins to cook at her home on the outskirts of Mumbai for sale. Her son Ammar returns from work only when the sun is much higher and it ends, which makes it nearly 100 Parathias surrounded by vegetables.

Salgaonkar lost her job in a non -profit organization about a year ago and her son Omar, 35, lost his job to sell mobile phones and data plans six months ago. With the lack of hiring retailers, he finally did a temporary work, as he was traveling nights on transport trucks, and helping drivers negotiate with the police and other officials.

This week, when Finance Minister Nermalla Setharmann offers the budget on February 1, she will have to find a way to stimulate growth and employment for millions of people such as salgaonkars, who are struggling to find fixed work, while maintaining the goals of the financial deficit.

“We don’t sit at home,” says Barima. She quickly recounts how vegetable prices have risen, leaving a little money to meet the expenses and save Ammar’s wedding, which now seems to be a distant dream given that he has no fixed job.

GDP in India fell to 5.4 percent for the quarter ending in September 2024, the latest data available and slowed in seven quarters. Growth is expected to slow to 6.4 percent for the fiscal year ending March 31, which is slower in four years. However, “there is no room for financial indulgence,” or increased government spending on the start of growth, says Dhiraj Nim, an economist at Anz Bank.

Increased government spending during the epidemic led to a swollen financial deficit of India to 9.3 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March 2021. Stemarmanan said it plans to reduce it to 4.9 percent this year and less than 4.5 percent next year.

Economists say that weakening of consumers and a decrease in capital by private companies was a traction on the economy.

“Some economists, including me, reported that the demand after birth represents a problem,” says Sonile Sinha, a professor of economics at the Institute of Development and Communications,.

Sinha says that the demand for goods and services that have been recovered to prenatal levels only in certain areas, such as wealthy Indians, international tourism, luxury cars and other distinct products. But the demand for collective consumption products, such as soap, shampoo and biscuits, remained low and fell in the past quarter.

Ammar, who was working in the prosperous mobile sales sector in India for a period of nine years, found that after the epidemic, the sale of mobile phones and data plans became more difficult, and friends and colleagues became their jobs and finding a new job difficult.

“Reducing government spending

In the past decade that was in power, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spent money on building highways, bridges and other large infrastructure projects to generate growth and employment. But this may not be possible given the goals of financial spending.

“There is an end to how much the government is able to stimulate growth,” says Ngeil Gupta, the chief economist at Motlel Ozwal Securities, a Mumbai Securities Company. “We are largely weighing from the government by expecting to enhance growth a lot.”

The private sector’s investment in India has remained low despite the decrease in tax rates in 2019 to 22 percent of 30 percent for companies.

Sinha says that the spending of companies will only come with the vision of the demand, which remained weak.

This walk in encouraging demand without excessive spending has become more difficult with the new administration in the United States.

“The government will abide by [fiscal deficit] Romky Magmard, economist at Deloitte India, says that the goal that wants to indicate confidence is that it suffers from its expenses, especially when capital flows are volatile due to policy changes all over the world.

Trump’s threat

Foreign investors sold shares worth more than $ 8 billion in Indian stock markets in January when President Donald Trump took office, strengthening the dollar and Trump promised to support American companies to recover to other countries. Foreign currency reserves in India also decreased in this period.

The Trump administration has threatened customs duties against imports and questioned the need for H-1B visas for high skills professionals, which may affect the technology sector in India.

“There is a visual and visual discussion in the Trump camp on the skilled workers x visas. Rick Rousseau, head of Asian sacrifices emerging at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is a research tank in Washington, based in Washington, DC.

Trump’s tariff for Chinese products may move to India, and the efforts that India is trying to encourage in the past few years of the trade war between Washington, DC and Beijing. However, New Delhi achieved mixed success.

“America’s batch to reduce excessive dependence on Chinese manufacturing has helped to decline in a few investments in technology manufacturing in sectors such as semiconductors and solar manufacturing. But there is a expectation that under Trump, you cannot expect the US government to continue to encourage companies The American in these sectors on “Friendship” for India. India will need to win the existing investments only over the local market conditions, which require aggressive reforms in [federal] And the levels of the state.

Sinha says that many of these bottlenecks are for investors, including access to land, water, and energy supply, and are now in the hands of state governments, many of which deal with high unemployment and weak demand for consumers by providing o’clock to electoral matters, such as cash bulletins. This probably affected the state’s deficit.

For example, Salonkar says that she has benefited from the plan of the Maharashtra government, which gives the 1500 -rupees of cash ($ 17) for women. He helped her balance an unstable family budget.

But Motell Oswalz Gobta says, “We have to ask, are these plans necessary? What is the basis that these plans are designed on these plans? Are they just a political tool? In the structural point of view, we do not like this, and there is an end to their ability to stimulate growth.”

You need a plan

If state governments are spent on capitalist spending, such as building smaller roads, they may lead to more than large infrastructure projects of the union government, which are increasing mechanism, as Sinha says.

Magomdar of Deloitwy says that the government also needs to improve access to employment, land and capital to increase production, which in turn will help create job opportunities.

Gobta says in Motel -Oswal that the growing construction sector in India, which is also the second largest employer after cultivation, can get a budget budget.

Although there is some debate about whether there can be a mitigation of income tax rates, economists do not fully agree that this may increase the demand of the lower middle class in India.

Although slow demand was an increasing problem in the economy, Sitharaman said the slowdown “is not a systematic”. She said that the slowdown in the last quarter came due to the slowdown in public investment in the election year, during which governments are prohibited from spending to influence the election results by the election committee in India. Sitharaman expects growth to be recovered in the next quarter.

SALGAONKAR has its medical prescription for Sitharaman: low prices, increased purchase capacity by creating job opportunities, or both.

Inflation rose to 6.2 percent in October, as it reached the highest level in 14 months and exceeded the central bank’s goal of 4 percent, and Selvoncar talks about the high prices of wheat, cooking gas and clothes from among other basic things while its income decreased in its home.

While investments in physical infrastructure are likely to continue despite financial restrictions, GUPTA from Anz says, “I think create a vision and a road map to improve the human capital of India [by improving skills and education] It will be a welcome step.