TW Newsdesk, Feb 2: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, presented the Union Budget 2023, the fifth budget of Modi 2.0. In the last full- fledged Budget before the general elections in the upcoming year, Finance Minister stated that the Indian economy is on the right path and heading towards a bright future. Providing a big boost for taxpayers and economy, Sitharaman announced massive changes in tax slabs under the new tax regime and big hike in allocation for railways

Key Points for Tax Payers:

• No changes made in the old tax regime
• New tax regime to become the default tax regime. However, citizens can also opt for the old tax regime.
• No tax on income up to Rs 7.5 lakh a year in new tax regime (with inclusion of standard deduction)
• Government proposes to decrease highest surcharge rate from 37% to 25% in new tax regime

New Income Tax Slabs Under the New Tax Regimes:

• Rs 0-3 lakh: Nil
• Rs 3-6 lakhs: 5%
• Rs 6-9 lakhs: 10%
• Rs 9-12 lakhs: 15%
• Rs 12-15 lakhs: 20%
• Rs Over 15 lakhs: 30%

What gets cheaper and what will cost you more:

Cheaper –

• Mobile phones
• TV
• Lab-grown diamonds
• Shrimp feed
• Machinery for lithium ion batteries
• Raw materials for EV industry

Costlier –

• Cigarettes
• Silver
• Compounded rubber
• Imitation Jewellery
• Articles made from gold bars
• Imported bicycles and toys
• Imported kitchen electric chimney
• Imported luxury cars and EVs

Saving schemes announced-

• Maximum deposit limit for Senior Citizen Savings Scheme to be increased 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 which is set to be available for 2 years up to March 2025. The scheme will offer deposit facility of up to Rs 2 lakh in the name of women or girls for tenure of 2 years at fixed interest rate of 7.5 per cent with partial withdrawal option.

MSME

• Revamped credit guarantee for MSMEs to come into effect from Apr 1, 2023 with infusion of Rs 9,000 crore in corpus
• The scheme would allow additional collateral-free guaranteed credit of Rs 2 lakh crore and also reduce the cost of the credit by about 1 per cent.

Banking:

• Govt moots amendments to Banking Regulation Act to improve governance in banks

Jobs:

• Government set to launch Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0
• To skill the youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India International Centres is set to be built across different States.
• Direct Benefit Transfer under a pan-India National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme to be launched to provide stipend support to 47 lakh youth in three years.

Gems and Jewellery:

• To encourage the indigenous production of lab-grown diamonds, a research and development grant is set 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 & Highways:

• 50 additional airports, helipods, water aero drones, advanced landing grounds will be revived to improve regional air connectivity.
• Union Budget 2023-24 allocates enhanced outlay of Rs 2.70 lakh crore for the highways sector.
• Allocation to NHAI increased by 13.90 per cent to Rs 1.62 lakh crore for 2023-24.

Ease of Doing Business:

• Govt to bring another dispute resolution scheme Vivad Se Vishwas-2 to provide settlements commercial disputes
• PAN as common identifier for all digital systems of govt agencies
• One stop solution for reconciliation and updating identity maintained by several 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 is set to be used as a common identifier for all Digital Systems of specified government agencies.
• Over 39,000 compliances have been reduced and over 3,400 legal provisions decriminalised to enhancing ease of doing business.
• Jan Vishwas Bill to amend 42 Central Acts have been introduced to further trust-based governance.
• Finance Minister announces several 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 built in engineering institutions
• Labs is set to 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 is set to partner to developing, providing scalable options for health, agri and other sectors

Health:

• Health sector has been allocated Rs 89,155 crore in the Union Budget
• Government formed Mission to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047
• A new programme for research in pharmaceuticals will be formulated and the industry will be encouraged to invest in research.
• Out of Rs 89,155 crore, Rs 86,175 crore has been allocated to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, while Rs 2,980 crore to the Department of Health Research.
• Budget allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana for 2023-2024 is Rs 3,365 crore.
• Among these central sector schemes, the budget allocation for the National Health Mission has been increased from Rs 28,974.29 crore.
• Budget allocation for the AYUSH ministry has been surged from Rs 2,845.75 crore.
• The allocation for the National Digital Health Mission – NHM has been surged from Rs 140 crore to Rs 341.02 crore.
• For the National Tele Mental Health Programme, the budget allocation has been surged from Rs 121 crore to Rs 133.73 crore.
• The budget allocation for autonomous bodies surged from Rs 10,348.17 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 17,322.55 crore in 2023-24.
• The allocation for ICMR has been increased from Rs 2,116.73 crore to Rs 2,359.58 crore.

Housing:

• Outlay for PM Awaas Yojana enhanced 66% to more than Rs 79,000 crore

Education:

• Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence to be set up in top educational institutions.
• 157 new nursing colleges is set to be established in colocation with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014.
• Eklavaya Model Residential Schools to be set up in the upcoming 3 years. The Centre is set to recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for 740 schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.
• National Data Governance Policy to be brought out to unleash innovation and research by start-ups and academia.
• Grant for University Grants Commission (UGC) has been surged by Rs 459 crores (9.37 pc).
• Central Universities have been surged by 17.66%, Deemed University by 27%, support to IITs have been increased by 14%, and to NITs by 10.5% as compared to BE 2022-23

Aims of Budget 2023:

1. Facilitating enough opportunities for citizens, especially youth
2. Providing strong impact to growth and job creation
3. Strengthening macro-economic stability
4. To aim for the empowerment of women in Budget 2023
5. To allow women self-help groups to reach next stage of economic empowerment
6. To provide assistance to self-help groups with raw material supply, branding, marketing of products