Budget 2022: Watch out for the highlights from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech

• Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to make her fourth budget speech as India’s Finance Minister.
• Stock markets have regained a lot of the recently lost value in the hope that the Narendra Modi government will spend enough money to boost private consumption.
• This article will be updated with the most important parts of Sitharaman’s speech as soon as she starts speaking.

Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to make her fourth budget speech as India’s Finance Minister. Stock markets have regained a lot of the recently lost value in the hope that the Narendra Modi government will spend enough money to boost private consumption. This may include income tax cuts as well, according to experts.

The first part of her speech focussed on the government’s upcoming programme titled ‘Gati Shakti’. This programme involves big public investment in building modern infrastructure including roads, highways, seamless multimodal transport, and improving logistics networks to name a few.

As part of this programme, the budget has allocated ₹20,000 crore to award 25,000 kilometres of highway projects in the financial year ending March 2023.

In deference to the request from many states, the outlay of the Scheme for Financial Assistance to states has been increased from ₹10,000 crore to ₹15,000 crore. The allocation for FY23 is ₹1 lakh crore to catalyse overall investments in the economy.

The 50-year interest free bonds are over and above the normal borrowings by the states. This will be used for Gati Shakti, rural road projects, town planning schemes etc.

The Finance Minister has announced a fund to support startups in agriculture which will be routed via National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

A credit guarantee trust will create additional credit of ₹2 lakh crore for small businesses.

Desh Stack platform will provide API-based certification and help upskilled people find relevant jobs.

The Finance Minister proposed the use of drones as a service in select Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in all states.

A national digital university will be launched, in a hub-and-spoke model, where other public universities will collaborate.

To improve access to mental healthcare, 23 tele-mental health centres will be launched, with National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) as the nodal unit, and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore providing tech support.

₹60,000 crore budget allocation in FY23 to take piped water connections to 8.8 crore homes.

23 tele-mental health centres will be launched to improve access to mental healthcare. NIMHANS will function as the nodal unit, and IIIT Bangalore providing tech support.

PM Awas Yojana, a subsidised housing scheme, gets a budget allocation of ₹48,000 crore.

E-passports with embedded chips will be rolled out in 2022-23 to make it convenient for citizens.

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