Budget 2024: 18 Key Highlights From Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Speech

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made various announcements in the Interim Union Budget on Thursday (1 February). Here are 15 key highlights from her speech:

1. Aspirational Districts Programme: Sitharaman expressed the Centre's readiness to assist states in the faster development of aspirational districts and blocks including the generation of "ample economic opportunities".

2. PM Awas Yojna Gramin: The Finance Minister announced that the government is close to achieving the target of three crore houses and two crore more houses will be taken up in the next five years.

3. Rooftop Solarisation: Through rooftop solarisation, 1 crore houses will be enabled to get 300 units of electricity free per month. The households will be able to save Rs 15,000-18,000 annually and the surplus can be sold to distribution companies.

4. Medical colleges: More medical colleges will be setup by utilising the existing hospital infrastructure under various departments. A committee for this purpose will be set up to examine issues and make relevant recommendations.

5. Cervical cancer vaccination: "Our government will encourage vaccination for girls in the age group of nine to 14 years for prevention of cervical cancer," Nirmala Sitharaman said.

6. Poshan 2.0 and UWin platform: Upgradation of Anganwadi centres and Poshan 2.0 will be expedited for nutrition delivery and early childhood care. The newly designed UWin platform will be rolled out expeditiously for managing immunisation.

7. Boosting farmers' income: The government will further promote private and public investment in post-harvest activities including aggregation, modern storage, supply chain, primary and secondary processing and marketing and branding.

8. Atmanirbhar Oilseeds Abhiyan: A strategy will be formulated to achieve self-resilience in oilseeds such as mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean and sunflower. Research for high-yielding varieties and crop insurance will be done.

9. Infrastructure Development: The government increased outlay for infrastructure expenditure by 11.1 per cent to Rs 11,11,111 crore. This would be 3.4 per cent of the GDP.

10. Railways: Three major economic railway corridor programmes will be implemented. These are energy, mineral and cement corridors, port connectivity corridors, and high-traffic density corridors. 40,000 normal rail bogies will be converted to the Vande Bharat standards to enhance safety, convenience and comfort of passengers.

11. Tourism promotion: States will be encouraged to take up comprehensive development of iconic tourist centres, branding and marketing them at global scale. A framework for rating of the centres based on quality of facilities and services will be established.

12. Inviting Foreign Investment: To encourage sustained foreign investment, the government is negotiating bilateral investment treaties with our foreign partners, in the spirit of ‘first develop India’.

13. Rs 75,000 crore for states: To help states in realising the vision for Viksit Bharat, Rs 75,000 crore at a 50-year interest-free loan is proposed to support milestone-linked reforms in states.

14. Demography: The government will form a committee to study challenges arising from fast population growth and demographic changes. The committee will make recommendations to deal with these challenges.

15. Rs 1 lakh crore for research: The creation of a Rs 1 lakh crore corpus, supported by a 50-year interest-free loan was announced to provide long-term financing or research opportunities with low or nil interest rates for the youth.

16. Revised Estimates 2023-24: The revenue receipts at Rs 30.03 lakh crore are expected to be higher than the Budget Estimate, reflecting strong growth momentum and formalisation in the economy. The Revised Estimate of the fiscal deficit is 5.8 per cent of GDP, improving on the Budget Estimate.

17. Tax benefits: While there are no changes in direct taxes and indirect taxes including import duties, certain tax benefits to start-ups and investments made by sovereign wealth or pension funds are extended till 31 March 2025.

18. Relief to taxpayers: Sitharaman proposed to withdraw outstanding direct tax demands up to Rs 25,000 pertaining to the period up to financial year 2009-10 and up to Rs 10,000 for financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15.