Union Budget 2023: Slum Rehabilitation Needs Urgent Focus, Says Chairman Raheja

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New Delhi: Navin M Raheja, Chairman and Managing Director of Raheja Developers on Sunday put forward two major suggestions to the government for the upcoming Union Budget 2023, to be presented on February 1. Raheja said the mushrooming of slums in India due to rapid urbanisation needs urgent focus, thus suggesting the government formulate policies to rehabilitate slum dwellers." There should be a separate department/ministry for doing complete rehabilitation of the slum dwellers in the country.

Illegal colonies which are devoid of facilities, devoid of life, devoid of human rights," he added. As part of the suggestion, he said to let slum dwellers be allowed to come with their proposals to the government, which he feels will also reduce activism by various vested interest groups." ()

The government should look into this Budget to give a little fillip to this or for little handholding," he said, urging the government to give some advances for it to be kickstarted. In continuation, he said those advances will give a message to developers that the government is serious about it and is participating. ()

In his second suggestion, he said the government should look at reviving all idle or defunct industries in order to push economic growth in the country."

Give them an opportunity to run so that they can create local employment...if we revive our closed units where tens of lakhs of crores are lying idle. If we revive them there won't be many investments required to make this country grow in less than five years.

There will be a complete transformation," he said. A little handholding by the government and doing away with overregulation is what is needed, he said. Like the previous two Union Budgets, Union Budget 2023-24 will also be delivered in paperless form.

The Union Budget 2023-24 is to be presented on February 1, 2023. The Budget documents will be available on the `Union Budget Mobile App` on both the Android and Apple OS platforms after the completion of the Budget Speech by the Finance Minister in Parliament on February 1, 2023.

The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for the next financial year (2023-24) commenced on October 10. Budget 2023 is likely to be the last full Budget of the Modi government in its second term with the next Lok Sabha election due in April-May of 2024.