India plans to cut personal income tax rates to boost middle-class spending power, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday, as she announced an annual budget that also sought to increase private investment to strengthen growth.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government presented an annual budget to Parliament on Saturday that focused on wooing the salaried middle class with tax cuts and spurring economic growth by boosting agriculture and manufacturing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's customary pre-Budget speech on Friday, January 31, gave the nation's middle class something to look forward to in Budget 2025. Every year, the middle class is mostly disappointed as the government introduces more schemes to benefit the poor and hardly has anything for the section that pays for most services through direct taxation.