Smt Nirmala Sitharaman: The First Fulltime Female Finance Minister

Her non-political career is as eventful as her political career. She was an assistant to Economist in the Agricultural Engineers Association in the United Kingdom. She also served as a senior manager in R&D. She was even a part of the BBC World Service team.

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The NDA second’s first budg-et is just a month away. At present, all eyes are on a single person. That person is none other than the first fulltime female finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. Her first budget was exceptional. The magic is expected to be repeated in the upcoming February also. This time, the biggest challenge before her is economic slowdown.

When she assumed the charge of the Finance Ministry, the Indian economy was at its weakest point. The induction was, thus, a huge challenge.

Despite the pressure imposed by the struggling economy, she presented a people-friendly budget. The common people – especially those in the salaried class whose income is less than Rs. 5 lakh – benefitted hugely from the budget. Though the focus was more on the common people, the needs of other classes were not left unattended; that too was also rightly addressed. Notably, even the measures required to boost the inflow of foreign investments were there in the budget.

In her first year in the office as the FM, she was very keen to serve the interest of the common people. The GST rates for certain items like housing, vehicles and hotel rooms were reversed several times in this period.

As the FM is preparing to come up with her new budget, the expectation remains at its peak. The country very well knows nothing lower than an extra-ordinary budget can be expected from the talented economist who holds a JNU M Phil degree in the subject of Economics.

Nirmala Sitharaman, who hails from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is a member of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament – Rajya Sabha. She represents the state of Karnataka.