Union Budget 2023: Key Takeaways

FM Nirmala Sitharaman has outlined 7 Priorities For first Budget in Amrit Kaal

 o Inclusive development

o Reaching the last mile

o Infra & investment

o Unleashing the potential

o Green growth

o Youth power

o Financial sector

 

📍 India's Economy to grow at 7% in the current year. FY24 Fiscal Deficit Target at 5.9%

📍 Rural Focus - FM announces that the Centre will Spend INR 2 Lakh Cr on Free Food Grains for all priority households under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana.

📍 Green growth would be one of the priorities of the budget. They will help Reduce carbon intensity and create green jobs

📍 National data Governance Policy to be brought out for access to anonymised data

📍 Health - Budget 2023 that a mission to Eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 will be launched by the government.

📍 Mahila Samman Savings Certificate for 2-year period up to March 2025 – Will offer deposit facility up to INR 2 Lakh @ 7.5% with partial Withdrawal option in the name of Women and girl

📍 Digilocker - One stop KYC maintenance system, the legalisation of the permanent account number (PAN) as a single business identification.

📍 50-year Interest Free Loan to State governments extended for 1 more year

📍 DBT scheme for youths - To provide support to 47 lakh youths in 3 years, a Direct Benefit Transfer under a pan India national apprenticeship scheme will be rolled out.

📍 Vehicle replacement – Replacing Old Polluting Vehicles – Scrap Old Vehicles of Central & State Govt including Ambulances – Budget allocation to be made

 

📍 Agricultural Sector 

• An open-source digital Infrastructure for agriculture & an agriculture accelerator fund focused on youth in rural areas
• PM PRANAM Scheme to promote balance use of fertilizers.
• INR 2,200 Crore for high-value Horticulture
• Increased Agri Credit Target to INR 20 Lakh Crore

📍 Infrastructure

• 100 critical transport infrastructure projects for last mile connectivity to be taken up on priority
• 50 additional airports for improving regional air connectivity
• INR 10,000 Cr per annum for Urban Infra DVPD Fund
• INR 6,000 Cr for promoting fisheries
• INR 7,000 Cr for Phase-III of E-Courts project

📍 Educational Infra

• 740 Eklavya Modern Schools and 157 new nursing colleges will be established
• Plan to Spend INR 15,000 Cr for vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) over 3 years
• 38,800 teachers to be recruited for the Centre of Excellence schools
• 36 Skill India centres to be set up across states
• National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents to be set up

📍 Research & Development

• 100 labs with 5G services for developing applications to be set up in Engineering Institutions
• Centres for Excellence for Artificial Intelligence – 3 centres to be set up in top educational institutions
• New Pharma Program for R&D through Centre for Excellence
• Lab Grown Diamonds – R&D grant to be provided to one IIT to reduced Cost of Production

📍 Energy Sector

• INR 35,000 Cr for energy transition and net zero objective
• Target to reach production of green hydrogen to 5 MMT by 2030
• INR 20,700 Cr to be invested for renewable energy production

📍 Capex Big Jump

• At INR 10 Lakh Crore, the Centre’s capex target for 2023-24 is 33% higher than the budget estimate of INR 7.5 Lakh Crore for 2022-23
• Effective Cap Expenditure by centre at INR 13.7 Lakh Cr (4.5% of GDP)
• Plan to increase PM Housing (PMAY) outlay to INR 79,000 Crore
• Govt proposes INR 2.40 Lakh Crore for Indian Railways which is 9x over FY14.

📍 MSMEs

• Ease of Doing Biz - 39,000 compliances reduced
• The revamp schemes will take effect from 2023 through an infusion of INR 9,000 Crore in the corpus. This will enable another Collateral-free credit of INR 2 Lakh Crore. Further the cost of credit will be reduced by around 1%. This is effective from 01-April 2023

📍 Borrowings

• The Centre will borrow INR 15.43 Lakh Crore via bonds in 2023-24 on a gross basis - a new all-time high
• In net terms, the borrowing programme has been fixed at INR 11.8 Lakh Crore
• These numbers are broadly in line with market expectations of INR 15.5 Lakh Crore and INR 11.7 Lakh Crore, respectively.

📍 Custom Duty

• Relief in custom duty on Import of certain parts of mobile phones like camera lens and batteries by another year, open cells of TV panels cut to 2.5%, etc.
• Taxes on cigarettes Hiked by 16%, compounded rubber increased to 25% from 10%, etc

📍 Personal Income Tax

• 0-3 Lakh - NIL
• 3-6 Lakh -5%
• 6-9 Lakh - 10%
• 9-12 Lakh-15%
• 12-15 Lakh -20%
• Above 15 Lakh - 30%

The new tax regime to become the default tax regime. The rebate increased from 5 Lakhs to 7 Lakhs for tax free income in the new tax regime.

 

📍 Income tax rate

• 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%

📍 Direct Taxes

• Processed more than INR 6.54 Cr Returns this year on the tax portal
• Revised Estimates – Total Receipts INR 24.3 Lakh Cr
• Net tax receipts – INR 23.3 Lakh Cr