New Delhi, Feb. 3 -- India's budget for 2025-26 demonstrates a careful balance between an unwavering focus on macroeconomic stability by continuing on a path of fiscal prudence and addressing growth concerns. It comes after a strong fiscal performance in 2024-25, when the government managed to outperform its fiscal targets, achieving a deficit of 4.8% of GDP against the budgeted 4.9%, primarily through reduced capital expenditure.

Notably, fiscal consolidation remains the budget's primary focus, with its fiscal-deficit target set at 4.4% of GDP, a further reduction of 0.4 percentage points. This is underpinned by conservative assumptions, including nominal GDP growth of just above 10% and its measured expectation of tax buoyancy at 1.07,...