Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman assumed charge as the Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs today is likely to present the budget for the year 2019-20 on July 5.
She was greeted at the office in North Block by Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs designate, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Finance Secretary Shri Subhash Chandra Garg and other Secretaries of the Ministry. Smt. Sitharaman is the first woman appointed as the full-time Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs.
After assuming the charge, the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs was briefed on the key initiatives and policy issues by the Secretaries of the different departments of the Ministry of Finance & Corporate Affairs and was apprised of the ongoing issues and the forthcoming challenges facing the Indian economy among others.
On Thursday, Narendra Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister for a second term helming a 58-member ministry with BJP chief Amit Shah making his debut at the Centre.
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has served as the Union Defence Minister since 2017. She is currently a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) from Karnataka. In 2014, she was elected as Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh. She has also served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs and later the Minister for Commerce and Industry with Independent Charge.
As the Defence Minister, Smt. Sitharaman is credited with expediting the decision-making process relating to procurement in defence sector. She constituted a Defence Planning Committee to formulate an “action plan” to effectively overcome with various security challenges facing the nation.
Smt. Sitharaman joined the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) in 2008 and has served as a national spokesperson for the party since 2010.
On 1st February, the ex-Finance Minister Arum Jaitley had pronounced the interim budget ahead of Loksabha election granting a lot of relief to the middle class individuals.
