Nirmala Sitharaman had ditched the long-standing tradition of carrying budget documents in a leather briefcase and had gone swadeshi with a 'bahi-khata' for her 2019 Budget. For the presentation of Budget 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has switched to a 'Made In India' tablet. In her speech after the budget she mentioned:
In the heart of this budget is the village and agriculture. Ease of living for Individual, investor, industry and infrastructure is aimed at - so lot of changes will happen - The end result may take time, project completion may happen later, but demands will be immediate with more jobs etc.
"At 11 AM today, almost everyone expected a Shakespearean tragedy to unfold in the central hall of the Parliament, and a pall of gloom to surround the budget speech. The FM put paid to everything within the first thirty minutes or so with announcements that thundered spends by government far exceeding the most optimistic expectations.
With her listing out of the fairly critical reforms in the financial sector, infrastructure outlays, and opening the insurance industry to additional foreign investments, the Sensex already on light wings got more aviation fuel. While it was quite expected that TamilNadu and West Bengal will get more attention than usual, the pointed announcements of significant infrastructure investments should make the industry in the respective states quite energised.
The fiscal deficit of 9.5% for the FY 2021 carries a spend of an additional Rs 4.6 lac cr for the current year over the budgeted spend of little over Rs 30 lac cr. The estimate for next year which is approx Rs 35 lac cr should be appreciated in this light. The budgeted borrowing of Rs 12 lac cr allows for additional allocations to the States and factors in significantly higher spend on health care almost touching Rs 2.5lac cr for the FY 2022. The numbers toted out regarding spends on MSP compared to what the previous regime did has stolen the thunder out of the farmers fight over the new laws.
The purported push for privatisation and asset monetisation are the other cornerstones of the current budget. There have been pointed criticisms that the government was slow off the block in the current year and missed the market buoyancy to hawk off its assets. Hopefully, the present budget should keep markets up for more time and give the government an opportunity to monetise assets at rich valuations.
The moderations in customs duty rates is encouraging as some of the changes should help industrial inputs are reasonable rates and improve competitiveness and keep inflation low in the country. There is always worry about fine prints in the budget documents but barring some corrective amendments to tax procedures there is little by way of an unpleasant surprise on the taxation front. Thankfully Covid bond or cess as feared by the market rumours didn’t materialise leaving more smiles on the face of everyone when the speech ended. While it is difficult to please all, perhaps there are exceptions when a Nirmala in a red saree presents the country’ budget!!"
CA. V Ranganathan, formerly with EY
The Budget: 99 touch points by V.Pattabhiram
*Top 100 Highlights of Historic Budget 2021 by FM*
1. No tax returns for Senior Citizens, age 75 years and above who have pension and interest income
2. Income Tax returns will have prefilled data from capital gains etc. To ease compliance for taxpayers, details of salary income, tax payment and TDS are prefilled currently
3. Faceless Income tax Appellate Tribunals National faceless ITAT centre to be set up
4. Reduce time limit for reopening of tax assessments to 3 years. Reduction in Time for Income Tax Proceedings – Presently an assessment can be opened in 6 years, and in serious tax fraud cases for up to 10 years. FM proposes to revise this limit for reopening of assessments to 3 years from the present 6 years
5. Tax Audit threshold of turnover further increased for digital transactions to 10 crores
6. Dispute Resolution Panel for small taxpayers
7. Advance tax on dividend to accrue only after it is declared.
8. Affordable housing is a priority area Rs1.5 lakh for loans to purchase affordable house is now extended by one more year
9. To further extend efforts towards unorganised labour force, I propose to launch a portal to collect relevant information on workers, building/construction workers among others
10. To enable deduction of tax on dividend income at lower treaty rates for FPIs
11. India FY21 budget deficit is said to be 9.5% of GDP. FY’21 fiscal deficit (Revised Estimate) pegged at 9.5% of GDP; fiscal deficit seen at 6.8% for FY22
12. India is said to estimate FY22 expenditure at about Rs 35 lakh crore.
13. 11,000 kms of national Highway to be Completed
14. Divestment target for FY22 at Rs 1.75 lakh cr. Asking Niti Aayog to work on the next list of PSU cos that could be taken up for divestment. Other than IDBI Bank, two other PSBs and one general insurance company to be divested in FY22
15. Introduce Investor Charter as a right of all investors across financial instruments.
16. 100% Electrification of Rail Routes by DEC 2023.
17. Decriminalisation under LLP Act Small Company definition changed, One Person Company revamped will be Big Boost to Startups
18. NRIs to be allowed to set up One Person Companies
19. The total estimate of all relief measures announced by govt & RBI so far is Rs 27.1 lakh cr (13% of GDP) in Covd19
20. Forthcoming census will be a digital census, allocating Rs 3768 crores for the exercise
21. The National Statistical Office has projected a 7.7% contraction in GDP in 2020-21.
22. Through the past year, the Finance Minister announced a Rs 30-lakh-crore plan, in ‘mini-budgets’ to beat Covid
23. Aim to double farmers income. The total financial impact of all AatmaNirbhar packages including measures taken by RBI was estimated to be about Rs 27.1 lakh crores
24. A portion of the agricultural fund will be allocated to APMC for furthering their infrastructure
25. New scheme called PM Aatmanirbhar Swastha Bharat to be launched, outlay of `64,180cr over 6 yrs
26. Announcing a voluntary scrapping policy to phase out polluting vehicles. Vehicles to undergo fitness tests after 20 years for personal vehicles and 15 years for CVs
27. Jal Jeevan Mission Urban to be launched at outlay of Rs 2.87 lakh crore.
28. 17,000 rural and 11,000 urban health and wellness centres to be set up.
29. India has two COVID-19 vaccines available and we expect two more vaccines soon
30. A vision for Atmanirbhar Bharat in part of Sitharaman’s first part.
31. FY22 budget proposals based on six pillars namely Health & Well-being, Inclusive Development Human Capital, Innovation and R&D, Physical & Financial capital and infrastructure, Minimum government, maximum governance
32. FY22 outlay (budget estimate) for health & well-being up 138%, is Rs 2,23,846 cr.
33. Scheme of mega invt textile park will be launched in addition to PLI scheme, 7 textiles parks to be unveiled over 3 years. Rs5 lakh cr will be lent by DFI in 3 years time
34. Professionally managed development financial institution (DFI) will be introduced with an allocation of 20,000cr
35. Asset monetisation dashboard will be created to provide clarity to investor Monetization of gas pipeline of GAIL, HPCL planned
36. A scheme of Mega Investments Textile Park will be launched in addition to PLI Scheme which will create world class infrastructure with plug & play facilities to enable global champions in exports
37. To tackle the problem of air pollution, propose, Rs 2200 crore for 42 urban centres; also announcing a vehicle scrapping policy towards reducing vehicular pollution
38. Rs. 2.86 Cr. Household tap connection to be established.
39. For 2021-22; capital expenditure seen at Rs 5.54 lakh cr, +34.5% increase YOY
40. 3500 km of national highway work being planned in Tamil Nadu at an investment of Rs 1.3 lakh cr
41. FY21 capital expenditure seen at Rs 4.39 lakh crore
42. Rs 44,000 crore under capital expenditure to be given to Department of Economic Affairs in FY22
43. Over and above this, Rs 2 lakh crore will be provided to states and autonomous bodies to nudge their expenditure.
44. Rs 1.03 lakh for highway project for Tamil Nadu
45. FY 22 allocation for Railways at Rs 1,10,055cr
46. Highway works proposed: 3500kms corridor in TN 1,100km in Kerala at investment of Rs 65,000 cr 675km in West Bengal at cost of Rs 95,000 cr 1300 kms in Assam in coming 3 years
47. Over 13,000 km length of roads at a cost of Rs 3.3 lakh cr has already been awarded under Rs 5.35 lakh cr Bharatmala project of which 3,800 kms have been constructed
48. Main interventions under PM Aatmanirbhar Swasth BharatYojana include Support for Health and Wellness Centres, Setting up Integrated Public Health labs in all districts, Critical care hospital blocks, Strengthening of NCDC
49. National Monetisation Pipeline of potential brownfield infra projects to be launched. Details a few road and power assets to be transferred to NHAI, PGCIL InvITs.
50. Scheme to assist Discoms will be launched with an outlay of over Rs 3 lakh cr
51. Railway to monetise dedicated freight corridors,
52. Four Acts converged into Securities Market Code, Investor Charter Introduced to Protect Investors, Insurance Act Amended to introduce FDI and AMC to be set up to take over stressed debts of Banks
53. Propose to amend the Insurance Act, propose to hike FDI limit to 74 percent from 49 percent. Also to allow foreign ownership & control with safeguards
54. Proposes to consolidate provisions of SEBI Act, Depositories Act, Securities Contracts Regulation Act, Government Securities Act
55.
56. Proposes to change the definition of a small company under the Companies Act 2013 by increasing their threshold for paid-up capital, from not exceeding Rs 50 lakhs, to not exceeding Rs 2 crores and Turnover from not exceeding Rs 2 crores to not exceeding 20 crores
57. Scheme for promoting flagging of merchant ships in India will be launched by providing subsidy support
58. Privatisation of one General Insurance PSU and IPO of LIC proposed
59. PM Swastha Bharat Yojana with an outlay of over Rs64000 cr
60. Govt to announce a policy for the privatisation of state-run cos & to create new list of companies for Divestment
61. Ujjwala Scheme to Cover 1 Crore more Beneficiaries
62. 100 more Dist. to be added under city Gas Expansion
63. In case of wheat, the amount paid to farmers in 2019-2020 was ₹62,802 crore and in 2020-2021 it was further increased to ₹75,060 crore
64. To provide Rs 20,000 crore in FY22 for recapitalisation of public sector banks.
65. 1.54 crore farmers benefited from MSP in paddy and what in FY21 vs 1.24 crore YoY
66. Asset reconstruction and management company to be set up for stressed assets of banks:
67. Ujjwala scheme will be expanded to over 1 crore more beneficiaries. We will add 100 more districts in the next three years to the city gas distribution network. A gas pipeline project will be taken up in Jammu and Kashmir
68. The MSP regime has undergone a change to assure price that is at least 1.5 times the cost of production across all commodities:
69. National Infrastructure Pipeline was launched with 6835 projects
70. Propose PSU Bank RECAP worth Rs. 20,000 Cr. FY 22.
71. Government sets agriculture credit target of Rs 16.5 lakh crore for FY22.
72. One-nation, one-ration plan under implementation by 32 states and union territories
73. Five major fishing harbours to be developed as hubs for economic activity
74. Micro irrigation corpus doubled to Rs 10,000 cr. Agriculture infra fund will be made available to APMCs
75. 100 new sainik schools will be set up in partnership with NGOs. There are other ‘umbrella’ structures to be created for higher education
76. For further setting up of Higher Education in Ladakh under NEP 2020, I propose to set up a central university in place
77. Provided Rs. 15,700 crore to MSME sector. MSME allocation to be doubled. Government to set aside Rs 15,700 crore in FY22. Government also proposes to reduce margin money requirement from 25% to 15% for startups.
78. Propose Rs 40000 Crore outlay for FY22 Rural Infra Fund
79. After achieving target of 8 crore LPG connections, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to cover another additional 1 crore beneficiaries.
80. Green scheme to be expanded to 22 perishable vegetable products
81. More than 15,000 schools in the country will be qualitatively strengthened to include all components of the National Education Policy:
82. On the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission, a detailed exercise has been undertaken to rationalize and bring down the number of Centrally Sponsored Schemes. This will enable consolidation of outlays, for better impact
83. Enhanced outlay of ₹ 1,18,101 crore for Roads
84. 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with electronic national market
85. A scheme for tea farmers will be introduced for the welfare of women and Children in Assam
86. Proposing substantial investments in the development of modern fishing harbours & fish landing centres. 5 major fishing harbours – Kochi, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Petuaghat will be developed as hubs for economic activities:
87. Record sum of ₹ 1,10,055 crore to be provided for Indian Railways, out of which ₹ 1,07,100 is for capital expenditure only
88. New scheme at a cost of ₹ 18,000 crore for augmentation of public bus transport services
89. Will facilitate deployment of innovative PPP models enabling private players to finance, acquire, operate and maintain over 20,000 buses
90. Y’22 Gross borrowing target at Rs 12 lakh crore; Need another Rs 80,000cr in next 2 months, will approach market to raise it
91. Govt proposes portal to collect info on gig-workers, building and construction workers, among others
92. Govt proposes to amend apprenticeship law to enhance opportunities for youth
93. Contingency Fund of India corpus to be raised to Rs 30,000 crore.
94. Normal ceiling for net borrowing for states at 4% of GSDP as per Finance Commission recommendations
95. Rs 1,500 cr earmarked for scheme to incentivise digital payments:
96. FM says government committed to bringing down fiscal deficit below 4.5 pc of GDP by 2025-26
97. Big boost for startups. Incorporation of one person companies to incentivize innovation in startups. Reducing residency limit for Indian citizen to set up 1 person company from 182 to 120 days
98. Govt proposes national language translation initiative
99. States to get 41 pc share of taxes as per 15th Finance Commission recommendation; govt has accepted the recommendation
100. proposes to review 400 old exemptions in Customs duties in FY22.
The comments on budgets by public figures were, there is nothing in fact less for education. 'The vision is to sell India. It had to be one in 100 years budget.' & It's like, I couldn't fix your break, so I made your horn louder. Let's hope for the best!
The farmers have rejected the three Farm laws. The MSMEs have said that they had got no relief at all. The Trade Unions have rejected the four Labour Codes! What is reform is what the people have rejected. It is the new definition of ‘reform’ and ‘democracy’ . According to the Survey, the top three ‘structural reforms’ were the (1) anti farmer laws (2) the new MSME definition and (3) the four Labour Codes. Chapter 2 of the Economic Survey can be summaries in three words: "Borrow and Spend"
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