Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented India's first 'paperless' budget in the parliament. The Union Budget for Financial Year 2021-22 was tabled amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The budget speech of the finance minister focussed on a wide range of topis- funds for tackling Covid-19, government spendings on education, healthcare and infrastructure as well as welfare of migrants and senior citizens. "The preparation of this Budget was undertaken in circumstances like never before. We knew of calamities that have affected a country or a region within a country, but what we have endured with COVID-19 through 2020 is sui generis," Nirmala Sitharaman said while starting her budget speech. Amid disruption by the Opposition which is demanding the repeal of the farm laws, the budget was tabled and successfully finished on time.
Here are key highlights of Union Budget 2021:
1. Health sector: The Government has increased the budget estimate outlay for Health by 137%. It is now 2,23,846 crores for the fiscal year 2021-22 against 94,452 in 2020-21.
2. Initiatives for creating $5 Trillion Economy: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech, announced many new initiatives to create a USD 5 trillion economy. She announced that the government has committed around 1.97 lakh crores for over 5 years starting from FY 2021-22. The initiative aims to bring large scale and size in key sectors, create and nurture global champions and provide jobs to youth.
3. Infrastructure: By March 2022, the government would be awarding another 8,500 km and complete an additional 11,000 km of national highway corridors under Bharatmala Pariyojna that would cost Rs 5.55 lakh crores. Rs 3.3 lakh crore has already been awarded for 11, 000 km of the national highway corridor.
4. Petroleum and Natural Gas: Ujjwala Scheme which has benefited 8 crores households, will be extended to cover 1 crore more beneficiaries. 100 more districts will be added under the City Gas Distribution network. Also, a gas pipeline project will be started in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
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5. Railways: A sum of 1,10,055 crores has been provided to Railways, out of which 1,07,100 crores will be used for capital expenditure. Railway will also introduce aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes to give a better travel experience to passengers.
6. Metro Service: For Metro services, two new technologies, ‘MetroLite’ and ‘MetroNeo’ will be deployed to provide metro rail systems at a much lesser cost with the same experience, convenience, and safety in Tier-2 cities and peripheral areas of Tier-1 cities.
7. Privatization: In spite of COVID-19, strategic disinvestment of several government undertakings namely BPCL, Air India, Shipping Corporation of India, Container Corporation of India, IDBI Bank, BEML, Pawan Hans, Neelachal Ispat Nigam limited among others would be completed in 2021-22. In her budget speech, the Finance Minister also proposed the privatization of two Public Sector Banks, apart from the IDBI, and one General Insurance company in the year 2021-22.
8. Housing: SWAMITVA Scheme, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, under which property rights are being given to owners in villages is proposed to be extended to all states/UTs. Also, the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund has been enhanced from 30,000 crores to 40,000 crores.
9. Education: Under Education, More than 15,000 schools will be qualitatively strengthened to include all components of the National Education Policy who will emerge as exemplar schools in their regions, handholding and mentoring other schools to achieve the ideals of the Policy. Also, 100 new Sainik Schools are proposed to be set in partnership with NGOs, private schools, and states.
10. Income Tax: Senior citizens above 75 years with only pension income are exempted from filing tax returns. However, no new relief has been announced for income tax payers.
11. Covid-19 Vaccine: The Finance Minister announced that Rs 35,000 crores for the Covid-19 vaccine have been provided as part of BE 2021-22 and the government is committed to providing furthermore funds if needed. Also, the Pneumococcal Vaccine which is made in India product will now be rolled out across the country.
12. Migrant Workers and Laborers: One Nation One Ration Card will be implemented- 67 crore beneficiaries in 23 states covering 83% of public distribution system population will be covered by national portability by August 2020. It will prominently benefit the migrant workers.
13. Start-ups: To incentivize start-ups in the country, the government extended the eligibility for claiming tax holiday for start-ups by one more year - till 31st March 2022 under the proposed budget.
14. Defence: The overall defence expenditure for 2021-2022 has been increased to Rs 4,78,196 crore from last year’s budgetary allocation of Rs 4,71,378 crore, an increase of mere 1.4%. However, the capital outlay for military modernization has been hiked by almost 19% to Rs 1,35,061 crore from last year’s budgeted Rs 1,13,734 crore.
“This is the highest-ever increase in capital outlay for defence in 15 years,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted.
15. Insurance: The government proposed to amend the Insurance Act, 1938 to increase the permissible FDI limit from 49% to 74% in Insurance Companies and allow foreign ownership and control with safeguards. Under the new setup, the majority of Directors on the Board and key management persons would be resident Indians, with at least 50% of Directors being Independent Directors, and a specified percentage of profits being retained as a general reserve.
