Budget 2023: Big takeaways from Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech

Budget 2023: On Wednesday the Union government finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, the Budget 2023 will focus on economic growth and job creation and cut down the fiscal deficit. She presented the Union government’s last full budget in Parliament before the 2024 election.

She also said the enhanced capex of ₹10 lakh crore for infrastructure development is at 3.3 per cent of the GDP.

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%

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 Citizen Savings Scheme

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.

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.

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.

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.
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 through the budget 2023 made it clear, that they 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.

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 in budget 2023

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.

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.

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.