Budget 2023 highlights: All eyes are glued to the Budget announcements being made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament. Govt is planning to spend Rs 2200 crore for high-value horticulture and an increase in agri credit target to Rs 20 lakh crore are some of the key announcements so far. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget comes amid looming global recessions and slowing growth. Sitharaman also announced that PAN will be used as a common identifier for all business.
Aims of Budget 2023 to include:
1. Facilitating ample opportunities for citizens, especially youth
2. Providing strong impetus to growth and job creation
3. Strengthening macro-economic stability
4. To aim for the empowerment of women in Budget 2023
5. To enable women self-help groups to reach next stage of economic empowerment
6. To help self-help groups with raw material supply, branding, marketing of products
Here are key highlights of Budget 2023:
Five major announcements for Income Tax payer:
* New tax regime to become the default tax regime
* No tax on income up to Rs 7 lakh a year in new tax regime
* Govt proposes to increase income tax rebate limit from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh in new tax regime
* No income tax till Rs 3 lakh income
*New standard Deduction Rs. 52,500 for salaries taxpayer having income of Rs. 5 Lakh
*Increasing tax exemption limit to Rs. 25 Lakh on Leave encashment on retirement for Non-Government salaries employees.
New slabs under new tax regimes
Rs 0 -3 lakh Nil
Rs 3-6 lakh 5%
Rs 6-9 lakh 10%
Rs 9-12 lakh 15%
Rs. 12-15 lakh -20%
Above 15 lakh – 30%
Major relief to all tax payers in new regime: FM
Processed more than 6.54 cr Returns this year on the tax portal, average processing period of 93 days in FY13-14 reduced to 16 days now; 45% Returns processed within 24 hours. The taxpayer portal received maximum of 72 lakh returns a day: Sitharaman
Indirect Taxes:
* National calamity contingent duty (NCCD) increased by 16% on specified cigarettes. Cigarettes will get more expensive, says FM
* New cooperatives that commence manufacturing till March, 2024 to get lower tax rate of 15%
* Basic customs duty on crude, glycerine is proposed to be reduced to 2.5%.
* Propose to increase import duty on silver bars to align it with gold, platinum
*Extend customs duty cut on imports of parts of mobile phones by 1 year
* To promote value addition in the manufacturing of TVs, customs duty on open cells of TV panels reduced to 2.5%
*Currently, the highest rate is 42.74% income tax under the new regime. The FM has proposed to reduce the highest surcharge from 37% to 25% in the new tax regime, max rate of 39%.
Green Growth:
*Green hydrogen, clean energy storage and transmission are the key drivers of the government’s “Green Growth” priority sector.
* Battery energy storage systems with capacity of 4,000 MWh will be supported with viability gap funding.
*A detailed framework for pumped storage will also be formulated.
*The inter-state transmission system for evacuation and grid integration of 13 GW renewable energy from Ladakh will be constructed with an investment of Rs 20,700 crore including Central support of Rs 8,300 crore.
*A green credit programme for encouraging behavioural change will be notified under the Environment Protection Act.
Saving schemes
* Maximum deposit limit for Senior Citizen Savings Scheme to be enhanced to Rs 30 lakh from Rs 15 lakh
* Monthly Income Scheme limit doubled to Rs 9 lakh and Rs 15 lakh for joint accounts
* One-time new saving scheme Mahila Samman Saving Certificate for women to be made available for 2 years up to 2025.
MSME
* Revamped credit guarantee for MSMEs to take effect from Apr 1, 2023 with infusion of Rs 9,000 crore in corpus
* New credit guarantee scheme for MSMEs to reduce cost of credit by 1 percentage point
Banking:
Govt moots amendments to Banking Regulation Act to improve governance in banks
Skill training:
* Government will launch Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0
* To skill the youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India International Centres will be set up across different States.
Clean Energy:
* Rs 35,000 crores priority capital for the energy transition
* Green credit programme will be notified under the Environment Protection Act
* Battery storage to get viability gap funding.
* Govt to support setting up of battery energy storage of 4,000 MwH
* National Green Hydrogen mission with an outlay of Rs 19,700 crore will facilitate the transition of the economy to low carbon intensity, reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports and make the country assume technology and market leadership
Gems and Jewellery:
* To encourage the indigenous production of lab-grown diamonds, a research and development grant is to be provided to one of the IITs for five years
* Proposal to review customs duty of lab-grown diamonds to be included in Part-B of Budget document
Aviation:
* 50 additional airports, helipods, water aero drones, advanced landing grounds will be revived to improve regional air connectivity:
Railways gets massive boost:
* An outlay of Rs 2.4 lakh crore provided for railways in FY24. It’s the highest ever highest ever allocation for Railways and is nearly nine times over FY14 allocations.
Ease of Doing Business:
* PAN as common identifier for all digital systems of govt agencies
* One stop solution for reconciliation and updating identity maintained by various agencies to be established using digi locker and Aadhaar as foundational identity
* Central Processing Centre to be set up for faster response to companies filing forms under Companies Act
* For business establishments required to have Permanent Account Number, the PAN will be used as a common identifier for all Digital Systems of specified government agencies.
* More than 39,000 compliances have been reduced and over 3,400 legal provisions decriminalised to enhancing ease of doing business
* Finance Minister announces multiple measures to enhance business activity in GIFT City
* Digital services
* Scope of services in DigiLocker to be expanded
* 100 labs for developing applications to use 5G services to be set up in engineering institutions
* Labs will cover smart classrooms, precision farming, and healthcare applications.
* Phase 3 of E-courts projects to be launched with outlay of Rs 7,000 crore
* Leading industry players will partner to developing, providing scalable options for health, agri and other sectors
Urban Development:
* Govt to spend Rs 10,000 crore per year for urban infra development fund
* Cities to be incentivised to improve creditworthiness for municipal bonds
* Aim for 100% mechanical desludging of septics tanks and sewers in all cities and towns
Housing:
* Outlay for PM Awaas Yojana enhanced 66% to over Rs 79,000 crore
* Capex hiked 33%
* Capital Expenditure increased 33 percent to Rs 10 lakh crore, which would be 3.3% of GDP, says FM
* Capital investment outlay to be 3.3% of GDP in FY24
* Effective capital expenditure of Centre at Rs 13.7 lakh in FY24
Interest-free loan to states to continue
* Centre to continue 50-year interest-free loan to state governments for one more year
Digital Library for Children, Adolescents Will Be Set Up:
* National Digital library will be set up for children and adolescents
* National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust to replenish non-curricular titles in regional languages, English to digital libraries.
* States to be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources
Education:
* Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence to be set up in top educational institutions.
* 157 new nursing colleges will be established in colocation with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014.
* Eklavaya Model Residential Schools to be set up in the next 3 years. The Centre will recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for 740 schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.
Agriculture:
* An Agriculture Accelerator Fund will be set up to encourage agri-startups by young entrepreneurs
* Digital public infrastructure to be developed for the agriculture sector
* The agricultural credit target will be increased to Rs 20 lakh crores with a focus on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries
* Over the next 3 years, one crore farmers will get assistance to adopt natural farming.
* 10,000 bio input resource centres will be set up
* Fisheries:
* To launch sub-scheme under PM Mastya Sampada Yojna with outlay of Rs 6,000 crore to further enable activities of fishermen
* Indian Institute of Millet Research will be supported as a centre of excellence
* Have initiated computerisation for 63,000 primary agricultural credit societies with an investment of Rs 2,516 crore, says FM.
* In drought-prone central regions of Karnataka, central assistance of Rs 5,300 crore to be given to upper Badra project to pro ..
Tribal Welfare:
* Pradhan Mantri Primitive Vulnerable Tribal Group (PMPVTGS) mission is been launched to improve socio-economic condition on PMPVTGS
* To improve social-economic condition of the Particularly Tribal Groups, PMPBTG Development mission will be launched, to saturate PBTG habitations with basic facilities. Rs 15,000 cr to be made available to implement scheme in next 3 years
Tourism:
*Promotion of tourism will be taken up on mission mode with active participation of states, the convergence of Govt programs & public-private partnerships.
* 50 tourist destinations will be selected through challenge mode to be developed as a whole package for domestic and international tourism
States will be encouraged to set a ‘Unity Mall’ in State capital or the most popular tourist destination in the state for the promotion and sale of ‘One District, One product’ and GI products and other handicraft
* The country offers immense attraction for domestic as well as foreign tourists. There is a large potential to be tapped in tourism. The sector holds huge opportunities for jobs and entrepreneurship for youth in particular.
PM Vishwa Karma Kaushal Samman:
* PM Vishwa Karma Kaushal Samman-package of assistance for traditional artisans and craftspeople has been conceptualised, will enable them to improve quality, scale & reach of their products, integrating with MSME value chain
Author Bio
