Hon’ble Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Interim Budget 2024-25 on 01st February 2024. It is expected that final budget would be presented in the month of July, 2024. Key highlights of the interim budget are as follows:
- PM-SVANidhi: This aims to provide credit assistance to 78 lakh street vendors. From the total, 2.3 lakh have received credit for the third time. It will lead to benefits to informal economy.
- Integration of Agricultural Market through electronic infrastructure. 1361 mandis are already integrated.
- The concept of ‘Viksit Bharat’ is highlighted in the speech of finance minister. A detailed roadmap of the same would be presented in full budget.
- PM Awas Yojna: India is close to achieving the target of three crore houses. Two crore more houses will be taken up in the next five years.
- Rooftop Solarization: It is focused with great intensity and government has setup target of one crore households to be enabled to obtain 300 units of free electricity every month.
- Research and Innovation: A corpus of INR 1 Lakh Cr will be established with a fifty-year interest-free loan. The corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates. It will automatically encourage private sectors to scale up research and innovation.
- Electric Vehicle: Government has focused in setting up of electric vehicle manufacturing facilities as well as charging infrastructure.
- Net Zero Emissions by 2070: Lots of measures are focused on harnessing offshore wind energy, mandatory blending of compressed biogas, piped natural gas, setting up of coal gasification plants, launching of bio machinery etc. in order to reach India’s commitment of net zero emissions by 2070.
- PM Mudra Yojna: In order to upscale entrepreneurship amongst youth, Rs. 43 crore more is budgeted under this scheme.
- Tourism and Entertainment: Five integrated Aquaparks would be set up. Iconic tourist centers would be developed in every city. Accordingly, various other related amenities would be made available. Lakshadweep is of main focus.
- Infrastructure: Metro rail would be introduced in many other cities. Also, capital expenditure outlay on infrastructure for next year is being increased by 11.1% to Rs. 11,11,111 crore which is 3.4% of GDP. 40,000 rail bogies will be converted to the Vande Bharat standards. Along with this, implementation of 3 major railway corridor program0073 under PM Gati Shakti scheme would be done.
- Technology & Innovation: “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan” is the slogan given. Various financing schemes have been launched for tech savvy youth. “Atmanirbharta” in defence sector will be of main focus.
- Fiscal measures: Tax slabs remained same for financial year 2024-25. Also, it is aimed to reduce the fiscal deficit below 4.5% by 2025-26.
