Budget Statement - Nangia & Co LLP

Budget statement 2025

devadmin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:15:07 +0000

The Union Budget 2025-26, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is a comprehensive roadmap aimed at accelerating India’s growth trajectory and realizing the vision of a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047. With a strong emphasis on inclusive development, infrastructure, innovation, and sustainability, the budget seeks to address key challenges while unlocking opportunities across sectors. The government’s focus on enhancing middle-class spending power through substantial tax reforms is commendable and timely, as it will directly contribute to boosting economic activity. The emphasis on fiscal consolidation, alongside strategic investments in agriculture and infrastructure, demonstrates a commitment to sustainable development. While prioritizing infrastructure and capital expenditure, the government remains committed to fiscal consolidation. The fiscal deficit for FY25 is set at 4.8 per cent, with an estimated reduction to 4.4 per cent in FY26. This disciplined approach ensures that thecentral government debt remains on a declining trajectory as a percentage of GDP. In line with the government’s recognition of MSMEs as the ‘second engine’ of economic expansion, the 2025-26 Budget introduces key reforms to enhance financial accessibility, technological adoption, and market linkages. A notable step was the enhancement of the credit guarantee cover forMSMEs from Rs. 5 crores to Rs. 10 crores, leading to additional credit of Rs. 1.5 lakh crore over the next 5 years. The government’s vision aligns with broader industry expectations and takes significant strides in bolstering the MSME sector, setting the stage for sustained growth and competitiveness. While there is always room for further enhancements, the budget represents a decisive step inthe right direction. The Budget also presents a roadmap to reinforce India’s commitment to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. After doing away with Angel Tax during the last budget, the additional ₹10,000 crore Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) and proposed Deep Tech Fund will provide crucial capital for startups, particularly in AI, Climate Tech, and Agri Tech. Enhanced MSME support and policies will improve ease of doing business and further accelerate growth for the future entrepreneurs. The new simplified taxation and regulatory framework will attract private capital, which in turn will further accelerate growth. In conclusion, the Union Budget 2025-26 lays a robust foundation for achieving a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047. It prioritizes human capital development, enhancing healthcare, education, and nutrition, while significantly supporting agriculture and MSMEs. The budget also emphasizes urban infrastructure, clean energy initiatives, and tax reforms, fostering inclusive growth and sustainable economic progress.

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Budget statement 2024

devadmin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:07:22 +0000

The Union Budget 2024-25 budget is undeniably progressive, especially with its focus on bolstering employment opportunities and supporting the growth of MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises). The focus on MSMEs through measures like easier access to credit, streamlined regulations, and enhanced market linkages, promises to empower these enterprises to thrive and contribute more effectively to national development. By lowering the threshold for mandatory TReds (Trade Receivables Discounting System) onboarding to Rs 250 crore, the government aims to streamline cash flows for MSMEs, enabling them to manage their finances more efficiently and sustainably. This measure enhances the liquidity which is crucial for the day-to-day operations and expansion of small enterprises. The skilling initiatives announced in the budget are incredibly encouraging and will ensure that the country can fully leverage its demographic dividend through our commitment to enhancing vocational education and aligning it with industry needs. Such focused measures will ensure that the youth is ready to meet the demands of the modern workforce. On the energy front, collaborating with the private sector for advanced research and development in innovative technologies and new energy segments will help ensure energy security for the country. Such partnerships could pave the way for safer, more efficient energy solutions tailored to Bharat’s needs. In addition, the substantial allocation for infrastructure development, including urban development and connectivity projects, is expected to help improve logistics and urban infrastructure, fostering economic growth. The Budget also emphasised on strengthening the rural economy. The implementation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in agriculture would be noteworthy, as it can help enhance efficiency, transparency, and traceability in the agricultural supply chain, benefiting farmers, agribusinesses, and consumers. Overall, the Union Budget 2024-25 emerges as a transformative blueprint for India’s economic resurgence. With strategic investments and forward-looking policies, India is poised to navigate global challenges while harnessing its immense potential for socio-economic development. The reiteration of the nextgeneration reforms, including those related to labour and land, stating collaboration between the centre and states will be critical to achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047. Optimism prevails that India’s journey towards becoming a global economic powerhouse is firmly on course.

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Budget statement 2023

devadmin — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:04:01 +0000

For India, the year 2022 was special! It marked the 75th year of India’s Independence and India became the world’s fifth-largest economy, measured in current dollars. The Economic Survey projects a growth of 7% in real terms for year ending March 2023 with GDP in nominal terms of around USD 3.5 trillion. India’s economic growth has been principally led by private consumption and capital formation. It has helped generate employment, as seen in the declining urban unemployment rate and in the growth of registrations in the Employee Provident Fund. The fundamentals of the Indian economy are definitely sound, as it enters its Amrit Kaal, the 25-year journey towards its centenary as a modern, independent nation with an economic agenda of providing opportunities for citizens (with focus on the youth), growth and job creation; along with having a strong and stable macro-economic environment. This is the context in which the Finance Minister announced the Union Budget 2023. The Finance Minister highlighted the resilience in the Indian economy and noted that despite the massive slowdown caused by Covid-19 and other global adverse events, the country is expected to grow at around 7%. The budgeted fiscal deficit for FY 2023-24 is pegged at 5.9%. The Finance Minister in her Budget Speech reiterated her commitment of staying in course of reducing the fiscal deficit to below 4.5% by 2025-26. The announcements made in the Union Budget 2023 focusses on 7 priorities to prepare the nation for the Amrit Kaal. The priorities, which are inter-woven in the budget proposals, are

Inclusive Development
Reaching the Last Mile
Youth Power
Financial Sector
Green Growth
Infrastructure and Investment, and
Unleashing the Potential.

The government has been focusing on promoting a cooperative-based economic development model. The Government’s focus on Inclusive development rests on 3 pillars

Agriculture and Cooperatives through, amongst other things, building an accessible, inclusive and informative digital public infrastructure for farmers, setting up of Agriculture Accelerator Fund for encouraging innovative startups in rural areas; a more targeted funding of INR 20 lakh crore for animal husbandry, dairies and fisheries sector; transforming India into a global hub for Millets ‘Shri Anna’; together with setting up of widely available storage capacity and preparation of a national cooperative database for country-wide mapping of cooperative societies
Health through setting up of 157 new nursing colleges, launch of programme to promote research in Pharmaceuticals, promotion of joint public and private research via select Indian Council of Medical Research labs
Education and Skilling which would include setting up of National Digital Library for children and adolescents, revamped Teachers’ training via District Institutes of Education and Training. The priority of Reaching the last mile envisages launching of Pradhan Mantri Development Mission for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, financial assistance for sustainable micro irrigation in drought prone regions of the state of Karnataka, recruiting around 38,800 teachers for the 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.

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Budget statement 2022

prakhar@kilobytetech.com — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:37:32 +0000

The much awaited budget of 2022, which was expected to bring impetus post the Covid-19 shock, was presented in the amidst of the surge of the Omicron virus. The past years have been testing times for the world at large and India has been no exception with both the short and long term disruptions and uncertainties caused by the pandemic. The Hon’ble Finance Minister’s Budget speech and the Economic Survey both started on the note of looming pandemic cloud. However, India’s growth trajectory as per advance estimates is pegged at GDP expansion of 9.2 per cent in 2021-22 after the contraction in 2020-21, highest among all the large economies. The Finance Minister premised the rebound and recovery of the economy on country’s strong resilience. The Budget 2022 has been aligned with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s recent Independence Day address and vision for India@100 and paving the way for the Amrit Kaal, the 25-year-long leading up to India@100. The Amrit Kaal, which is stated to be futuristic has an inclusive approach, seeking to benefit the youth, women, farmers, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and provide the required stimulus for growth. The Amrit Kaal would be coupled with PM GatiShakti (driven by seven engines, namely, Roads, Railways, Airports, Ports, Mass Transport, Waterways, and Logistics Infrastructure) which is aimed at big public investment for modern infrastructure, readying for India@100. PM GatiShakti is being slated to be transformative approach for economic growth and sustainable development. Such approaches found mentions at various places in the Hon’ble Finance Minister’s speech. Initiatives of the last year’s Budget have resulted in significant progress like strengthening of health infrastructure, speedy implementation of the vaccination programme, nation-wide resilient response to the current wave of the pandemic, Productivity Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for receiving great response and achieving the vision of AtmaNirbhar Bharat. With respect to the disinvestment plans announced in the last year’s budget, strategic transfer of ownership of Air India has been closed, the public issue of the LIC is expected shortly and others would follow. In the wake of the farmer discontent, the Government plans to follow inclusive development to promote agriculture sector, viz. promotion of chemical-free natural farming, promote use of ‘Kisan Drones’ for crop assessment, digitization of land records, spraying of insecticides, and nutrients. Revamping of the syllabi of agricultural universities has been emphasised to meet the modern needs of natural, zero-budget and organic farming, value addition and management.

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Budget statement 2021

prakhar@kilobytetech.com — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:39:46 +0000

The Budget comes amidst unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and also formed the prelude of the Budget Speech. This Global crisis and its aftershock has crippled many economies, whereas, India has not only been resilient but also playing the role of Pharmacy to the World. The cornerstone of the Budget was Atma Nirbhar Bharat: being largely self-reliant and a business epicenter of the World. The Budget rests on six pillars: Health and Wellbeing, Physical and Financial Capital, Infrastructure, Inclusive Development for Aspirational India, Reinvigorating Human Capital, Innovation and R&D, Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. These would go towards further strengthening nation first, doubling farmer’s income, strong infrastructure, healthy India, good governance, opportunities for youth, education for all, women empowerment and inclusive development. The pandemic has made everyone realign themselves towards holistic health, and the Budget touched upon three key areas: Preventive, Curative and Wellbeing whilst providing for tackle the burgeoning problem of air pollution, Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban), Mission Poshan 2.0 amongst others. For attainment of the aspirational 5 trillion-dollar economy, emphasis was laid on the manufacturing sector for whichProduction Linked Incentive scheme has already been outlined. The same would help India become global champions in manufacturing and an integral part of Global supply chains based on core competence and cutting-edge technology. The Indian Government’s thrust on infrastructure would require substantial fund infusion for which the Government would create institutional structure in the form of Development Financial Institution coupled with enhancing the share of capital expenditure in central and state budgets. Further, the debt financing of InVITs and REITs by FPIs will be enabled to provide the addition funding support. In addition to the aforesaid steps, the Government would rely on Asset Monetization wherein monetizing operating public infrastructure assets was highlighted to be an important financing option for development of new infrastructure. Also, policy of strategic disinvestment would lay out a roadmap for disinvestment and strategic sale in nonstrategic and strategic sectors which would help provide the requisite resources to the Indian Government. The Government aims to achieve inclusive development for aspirational India which would assure welfare of farmers and rural India, migrant workers (One Nation One Ration Card scheme), labour and financial inclusion for all.

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Budget statement 2019

prakhar@kilobytetech.com — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:42:19 +0000

Presenting Union Budget 2019 has added to the list of ‘firsts’, for India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was the first full-time female defence minister of the Country and now the first full-time female finance minister of the Country. Taking forward the ‘Ten-Dimensional Vision’ for the decade, set-forth by the Narendra Modi led government in the interim Budget of 2019-2020 presented in February 2019, Union Budget 2019 has set in motion the aspirational pursuit of India becoming a USD 5 Trillion economy, in the next few years. The focus of the Budget is to catalyze, fast, sustained and investment driven growth. Finance Minister’s speech emphasized policy measures ranging from transforming rural lives, infrastructural availability for greater industrial investment, enhancing sources of capital for infrastructure financing, making India a more attractive Foreign Domestic Investment (FDI) destination, transforming India’s higher education system to one of the global best education systems, providing ease of living to its citizens in India and encourage and facilitate the role of women towards women-led initiates and movements etc. Economic survey 2018-19 focused heavily on the need for an “optimal tax policy” and a tax system that can foster innovation, raise revenues efficiently and fairly while encouraging bonafide taxpayers and punishing malafide ones. The main focus of the survey has been on fostering investment through optimal tax policy, improving Tax compliance, ramping up capacity in the lower judiciary and promoting Electric Vehicles. While the Finance Minister highlighted the accomplishments under different schemes launched during the previous tenure of the current government, the current focus has been on more macro issues, amongst others, like management / preservation of Water Resources by constituting a “Jal Shakti Mantralaya”. The Finance Minister also proposed a scheme to provide pension to 30 Million retail traders under “Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan Scheme”. The budget has also given importance on achieving balanced socio-economic growth through fiscal policies to promote Electric Vehicles, developing inland waterways to decongest rails and roads, to provide Social Stock Exchanges for listing social enterprises working for realization of social welfare objective, promote start up, launch of exclusive channel for startups and many more. Several measures have been proposed to ease FDI norms by allowing 100% FDI in insurance intermediaries and proposal for easing of local sourcing norms for Single Brand Retail Trading, to promote foreign capital. Further, it is proposed to consider suggestions for further opening up of FDI in aviation, media (animation, AVGC) and insurance sectors. The Finance Minister started the tax proposals by thanking the honest taxpayers for their contribution towards nation building and boasted an increase in tax collections by over 78%, from INR 6,380 Billion in Financial Year 2013-14 to around INR 11,370 Billion in Financial Year 2018-19. While the budget proposals were almost none with respect to tax benefits for individuals, the aim was to stimulate growth, incentivize affordable housing, promote digital economy, bring greater transparency and encourage startups by releasing entrepreneurial spirits. Some proposals focused on ease of doing business by minimizing scrutiny assessments on ‘angel tax’ issues, faceless assessments, interchangeability of Aadhar & PAN. To promote electric vehicles the government extended additional income tax deduction of INR 0.15 Million on the interest paid on loans taken to purchase electric vehicles for individuals. Further, it is proposed to provide investment linked income tax exemptions on “Mega Investment in Sunrise and Advanced Technology Areas”. Budget also extended some income tax reliefs for affordable housing sector, NBFCs, units situated in IFSCs, startups. With respect to indirect taxes, in order to further simplify the GST processes, quarterly returns have been proposed to be introduced for taxpayers with turnover less than INR 50 Million. A dispute resolution cum amnesty scheme called “the Sabka Vishwas Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme, 2019” is being introduced for resolution and settlement of legacy cases of Central Excise and Service Tax, the proposed Scheme covers past disputes of taxes which have got subsumed in GST. Budget also saw some rate changes in indirect taxes, like increase in ‘Special Additional Excise duty’ and ‘Road and ‘Infrastructure Cess’ each, by one rupee a litre on petrol and diesel, increase custom duty on gold and other precious metals from 10% to 12.5%. Finance Minister has summoned forth everyone to place emphasis on their Duty towards our nation. On the Government’s part, with the slew of policy reforms and fiscal benefits to the corporates, the Finance Minister has tried to set the trajectory, towards arguably, a well-tested formula for success of “Reform, Perform, Transform”.

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Budget statement 2018

prakhar@kilobytetech.com — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:10:21 +0000

On 1st February 2018, when the Finance Minister presented the last budget of Central Government’s present term, persons from all strata’s of the society expected the Government to dole-out some benefits for themselves, before the Government goes out to polls next year to seek mandate for another term. In Prime-Minister’s own words, by Budget proposals, the Government has sought to improve “Ease of Living” alongwith “Ease of Doing Business” in India. In this budget, the Government has kept its focus and a lot of emphasis on uplifting the poor, rural sector, health, education, farmers, senior citizens, employment generation, infrastructure development and digital economy. The spending by the Government has been majorly earmarked for improvement of railway infrastructure, roads, sanitation & hygiene, healthcare, rural development, water supply, etc. To partly fund its spending, the Government kept some onus on itself by keeping a disinvestment target for FY 2018-19 at INR 80,000 crore and not merely relied on tax collections.

One of the most ambitious schemes announced by the Government in the Budget is National Health Protection Scheme providing health insurance of 5 lakhs per family to the 10 crore poor families. Taking an average of 5 members per family, this health insurance scheme is likely to benefit 50 crore Indians approximately, i.e. 38% of India’s total population. With increased Minimum Support Price for crops and linking it to the cost of production (150% of cost) for farmers, the Government has put another step forward to double farmers’ income by 2022 when India celebrates its 75th year of independence. Several other steps announced to improve the agriculture & rural sector and to improve living conditions include setting up Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and Agricultural Produce Market Committees (“APMCs”), extending facility of Kisan Credit Cards to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers to help them meet their working capital needs, setting up a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry, with a combined total Corpus of these two new Funds of Rs. 10,000 crores. In order to improve infrastructure in rural sector, the Government has increased spending on rural roads, electricity connection, sanitation, housing & education.

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Budget statement 2017

prakhar@kilobytetech.com — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:13:02 +0000

With the two key decisions of implementing GST and demonetization, taken last year, the Union Budget 2017-18 was announced amidst huge anticipation. The Budget was even more special and historic because the Modi government broke the legacy of announcing a separate Railway Budget after 92 years and merging it with the Union Budget. Added was the fact the budget was announced on February 1 as against the historic practice of announcing it on the last day of February. The Finance minister had to meet the huge expectations of everyone while also handle the three major challenges of lower capital inflows & higher outflows, uncertainty around commodity prices and potential of affecting exports. Considering these aspects and ensuring that the economy continues on its growth trajectory (exhibited through reduction in CPI Inflation Index, decline in current account deficit and increase in FDI; in first half of 2016-17); the finance minister focused the budget on ten distinct themes centered around farmers, rural population, youth, poor and the underprivileged, infrastructure, financial sector, digital economy, public service, prudent fiscal management and tax administration. The Budget also carried several breakthrough announcements including the proposed abolition of the FIPB, creation of an integrated oil & gas PSU major to rival foreign majors, increase of the strategic petroleum reserves from the current 5MMT to 15.33 MMT.

The announcement to shortly enact a law whereby loan defaulters fleeing to foreign countries would be subject to stringent action wherein their properties in India would be confiscated by the Government was met with widespread approval. On the tax policies, the Finance Minister reduced the corporate tax rates for small companies to 25%. It is unfortunate that the rate reduction was not effected for the larger companies as well. Abolition of MAT, while considered has been negated but relief has been granted to the taxpayers whereby MAT credit will now be available for a period of 15 years as opposed to the earlier 10 years. The Finance Minister also addressed the major issue confronting the financial markets which is the unintended taxation of FIIs and FPIs investing in India. These entities have now been exempted from these provisions with retrospective effect. Domestic transfer pricing provisions have been rationalised and will now apply only in cases where one of the parties is enjoying a profit linked incentive. Also, the threshold limit tax for audit has been increased from Rs. 1 crore to Rs. 2 crores. Provisions governing start-ups have been given a much needed rationalisation. The condition of continuous holding of 51% voting rights has been relaxed while the profit linked deduction/ exemption available from 3 out of 5 years has been increased to 3 out of 7 years. To capitalise on the benefits promised by the demonetisation drive, measures have been proposed to promote the digitisation of transactions. Cash transactions above Rs. 3 Lakhs are not permitted while allowability of both revenue and capital expenditure has also been restricted to Rs. 10,000. Necessary exemptions from BCD, Excise/CV Duty and SAD have also been provided on miniature POS card reader, micro ATM standard, finger print readers and other such devices.

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