Budget 2023: Key takeaways from Nirmala Sitharaman's announcements

Presenting the Budget for 2023-24, Sitharaman said the newly established infrastructure finance secretariat will assist in attracting more private investment.

Here are key takeaways from Budget 2023:

Personal income tax:

Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in the income tax rebate limit from ₹5 lakh to ₹7 lakh stating that the new tax regime will now be the default tax regime. The finance minister also proposed to change the tax structure in this regime by reducing the number of tax slabs to 5 and increasing the tax exemption limit to ₹3 lakh.

New slabs under new tax regimes

₹0-3 lakh : Nil

₹3-6 lakhs: 5%

₹6-9 lakhs: 10%

₹9-12 lakhs: 15%

₹12-15 lakhs: 20%

₹Over 15 lakhs: 30%

Indirect Taxes:

16 per cent increase in NCCD on certain cigarettes

Basic customs duty on crude, glycerine is proposed to be reduced to 2.5 per cent.

Increase import duty on silver bars to align them with gold and platinum.

Extend customs duty cut on imports of parts of mobile phones by one year.

To promote value addition in the manufacturing of TVs, customs duty on open cells of TV panels reduced to 2.5 per cent

Also Read | Budget 2023 new income tax slabs: How to calculate your tax

Mahila Samman Bachat Patra

For commemorating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, a one-time new small savings scheme, Mahila Samman Savings Certificate, will be made available for a two-year period up to March 2025. This will offer adeposit facility upto ₹2 lakh in the name of women or girls for a tenor of two years at fixed interest rate of 7.5 per cent with partial withdrawal option.

Senior citizens

The maximum deposit limit for Senior Citizen Savings Scheme will be enhanced from ₹15 lakh to ₹30 lakh. The maximum deposit limit for Monthly Income Account Scheme will be enhanced from ₹4.5 lakh to ₹9 lakh for single account and from ₹9 lakh to ₹15 lakh for a joint account.

Watch: Nirmala 'sorry' after 'replacing old political' tongue slip; Parliament in splits | Budget 2023

Health and education

157 new nursing colleges will be established in co-location with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014.

In the next three years, the Centre will recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for the 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools, serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.

A Mission to eliminate Sickle Cell Anaemia by 2047 will be launched. It will entail awareness creation, universal screening of 7 crore people in the age group of 0-40 years in affected tribal areas, and counselling through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments.

Facilities in select ICMR Labs will be made available for research by public and private medical college faculty and private sector R&D teams for encouraging collaborative research and innovation.

Teachers’ training will be re-envisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation. The District Institutes of Education and Training will be developed as vibrant institutes of excellence for this purpose.

PM Awas Yojana

The outlay for PM Awas Yojana is being enhanced by 66 per cent to over ₹79,000 crore.

Support for poor prisoners

For poor persons who are in prisons and unable to afford the penalty or the bail amount, required financial support will be provided.

Capital Investment

Capital investment outlay is being increased steeply for the third year in a row by 33 per cent to ₹10 lakh crore, which would be 3.3 per cent of GDP. This will be almost three times the outlay in 2019-20.

Effective capital expenditure

The direct capital investment by the Centre is complemented by the provision made for creation of capital assets through Grants-in-Aid to States. The ‘Effective Capital Expenditure’ of the Centre is budgeted at ₹13.7 lakh crore, which will be 4.5 per cent of GDP.

Support to state governments

The government will continue the 50-year interest-free loan to state governments for one more year to spur investment in infrastructure and to incentivize them for complementary policy actions, with a significantly enhanced outlay of ₹1.3 lakh crore.

Railways

A capital outlay of ₹2.40 lakh crore has been provided for the Railways. This highest-ever outlay is about 9 times the outlay made in 2013-14.

Regional connectivity

Fifty additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advance landing grounds will be revived for improving regional air connectivity.

Urban sanitation

All cities and towns will be enabled for 100 per cent mechanical desludging of septic tanks and sewers to transition from manhole to machine-hole mode. Enhanced focus will be provided for scientific management of dry and wet waste.

Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence

Three centres of excellence for Artificial Intelligence will be set-up in top educational institutions.

Common business identifier

For the business establishments required to have a Permanent Account Number (PAN), the PAN will be used as the common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies. This will bring ease of doing business, and it will be facilitated through a legal mandate.

Fintech services

To enable more Fintech innovative services, the scope of documents available in DigiLocker for individuals will be expanded. An entity DigiLocker will be set up for use by MSMEs, large business and charitable trusts. This will be towards storing and sharing documents online securely, whenever needed, with various authorities, regulators, banks and other business entities.

5G Services

One hundred labs for developing applications using 5G services will be set up in engineering institutions to realise a new range of opportunities, business models, and employment potential.

Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres

Over the next three years, the government will facilitate 1 crore farmers to adopt natural farming. For this, 10,000 Bio-Input Resource Centres will be set-up, creating a national-level distributed micro-fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing network.

Vehicle replacement

In furtherance of the vehicle scrapping policy mentioned in Budget 2021-22, she has allocated adequate funds to scrap old vehicles of the Centre. States will also be supported in replacing old vehicles and ambulances.

Skill India digital platform

The digital ecosystem for skilling will be further expanded with the launch of a unified Skill India Digital platform for:

⦁ Enabling demand-based formal skilling,

⦁ Linking with employers including MSMEs, and

⦁ Facilitating access to entrepreneurship schemes.

Tourism

With an integrated and innovative approach, at least 50 destinations will be selected through challenge mode. Sector specific skilling and entrepreneurship development will be dovetailed to achieve the objectives of the ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ initiative. This was launched as an appeal by the Prime Minister to the middle class to prefer domestic tourism over international tourism.

Digital payments

Digital payments continue to find wide acceptance. In 2022, they show increase of 76 per cent in transactions and 91 per cent in value. Fiscal support for this digital public infrastructure will continue in 2023-24.

Fiscal deficit of states

States will be allowed a fiscal deficit of 3.5 per cent of GSDP of which 0.5 per cent will be tied to power sector reforms.