UNION BUDGET 2023-24 (SUMMARY)

1. Capital Investment as driver of growth and jobs

 Capital investment outlay is being increased steeply for the third year in a row by
33 per cent to 10 lakh crores, which would be 3.3 per cent of GDP. This will be
almost three times the outlay in 2019-20.

2. Support to State Governments for Capital Investment

 Government have decided to continue the 50-year interest free loan to state
governments for one more year to spur investment in infrastructure and to
incentivize them for complementary policy actions, with a significantly enhanced
outlay of 1.3 lakh crore.

3. Enhancing opportunities for private investment in Infrastructure

 The newly established Infrastructure Finance Secretariat will assist all

stakeholders for more private investment in infrastructure, including railways,
roads, urban infrastructure, and power, which are predominantly dependent on
public resources.

4. Railways

 A capital outlay of ₹ 2.40 lakh crore has been provided for the Railways. This
highest ever outlay is about 9 times the outlay made in 2013-14.

5. Logistics

 100 critical transport infrastructure projects for last and first mile connectivity for
ports, coal, steel, fertilizer, and food grains sector have been identified. They will
be taken up on priority with investment of ₹75,000 crore, including ₹15,000
crores from private sources.

6. Regional Connectivity

 Fifty additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advance landing grounds
will be revived for improving regional air connectivity.

7. Sustainable Cities for Tomorrow

 States and cities will be encouraged to undertake urban planning reforms and
actions to transform our cities into ‘Sustainable cities of tomorrow”. This means
efficient use of land resources, adequate resources for urban infrastructure, trans-
 oriented development, enhanced availability and affordability of urban land and
opportunities for all.

8. Mission Karmayogi

 For enhancing the ease of doing business, more than 39000 compliances have
been reduced and more than 3400 legal provisions have been decriminalized. For
furthering the trust-based governance the government have introduced the Jan
Vishwas Bill to amend 42 Central Acts. This budget proposes a series of measures
to unleash the potential of our economy.

9. Common Business Identifier

 For the business establishments, the person required to have a Permanent Account
Number (PAN), the PAN will be used as the common identifier for all digital
system of specified government agencies. This will bring ease of doing business
and it will be facilitated through a legal mandate.

10. Unified Filling Process

 For obviating the need for separate submission of same information to different
government agencies, a system of ‘Unified Filling Process’ will be set-up. Such
filing of information or return in simplified forms on a common portal, will be
shared with other agencies as per filer’s choice.

11. Vivad se Vishwas I – Relief for MSMEs

 In case of failures by MSMEs to execute the contract during Covid period, 95 per
cent of the forfeited amount relating to bid or performance security, will be
returned to them by the government and government undertakings. This will
provide relief to MSMEs.

12. Entity DigiLocker

 An Entity DigiLocker will be set up for use by MSMEs, large businesses and
charitable trusts. This will be towards storing and sharing documents online
securely, whenever needed with various authorities, regulators, banks, and other
business entities.

13. 5G Services

 Government will develop 100 labs for developing applications using 5G services.
These labs will be set up in engineering institutions to realise a new range of
opportunities, business models and employment potential. The labs will cover
among others applications such as smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent
transport system and health care applications.
14. Green Hydrogen Mission

 The recently launched National Green Hydrogen Mission, with an outlay of

₹ 19,700 crores, will facilitate transition of economy to low carbon intensity,
reduce dependency on fossil fuel imports and make the country assume
technology and market leadership in the sunrise sector.

15. Green Credit Programme

 For encouraging behavioural change, a Green Credit Programme will be notified

under Environment (Protection) Act. This will incentivize environmentally
sustainable and responsive actions by companies, individuals and local bodies and
help mobilize additional resources for such activities.

16. Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres

 Over the next 3 years, Government will facilitate 1 crore farmers to adopt natural
farming. For this 10,000 Bio-input Resource Centres will be set-up, creating a
national-level distributed micro-fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing network.

17. Coastal Shipping

 Coastal Shipping will be promoted as the energy efficient and lower cost mode of
transportation, for both passengers and freight, through PPP mode with viability
gap funding.

18. Vehicle Replacement

 Replacing old polluting vehicles is an important part of greening our economy. In

furtherance of the Vehicle Scrappage Policy mentioned in Budget 2021-22, the
government have allocated funds to scrap old vehicles of the Central Government.
States will also be supported in replacing old vehicles and ambulances.

19. Youth Power

 To empower youth and help the ‘Amrit Peedhi’ realize their dreams, the
government have formulated the National Educational Policy, focused on skilling,
adopted economic policies that facilitate job creation at scale and have supported
business opportunities.

20. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0

 This scheme will be launched to skill lakhs of youth within the next three years.
On-job training, industry partnership and alignment of courses with needs of
industry will be emphasized. This scheme will also cover new age courses for
 Industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones and
soft skills. To skill youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India
International Centres will be set up across different States.

21. Skill India Digital Platform

The digital ecosystem for skilling will be further expanded with the
launch of a unified Skill India Digital platform for:

 Enabling demand-based formal skilling.

 Linking with employers including MSMEs
 Facilitating access to entrepreneurship schemes

22. National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme

 To provide stipend support to 47 lakh youth in the next three years, Direct Benefit
Transfer under a pan-India National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme will be
rolled out.

23. Credit Guarantee for MSMEs

 Last year the government proposed revamping of the credit guarantee scheme for
MSMEs. The revamped scheme will take effect from 1st April 2023 through
infusion of ₹ 9,000 crore in the corpus. This will enable additional collateral free
guaranteed credit of ₹2 lakh crore. Further, the cost of credit will be reduced by
about 1 per cent.

24. Senior Citizens

 The maximum deposit limit for Senior Citizen Savings Scheme will be enhanced
from ₹15 lakhs to ₹30 lakhs.
 The maximum deposit limit for Monthly Income Account Scheme will be
enhanced from ₹ 4.5 lakhs to ₹ 9 lakhs for single account and from ₹ 9 lakh to ₹
15 lakh for joint account.

25. Indirect Taxes

A. Electronics – Relief in custom duty on import of certain parts and inputs like
camera lens and continue the concessional duty on lithium-ion cells for batteries
for another year.

To promote value addition in manufacturing of TVs, the government propose to

reduce the custom duty on parts of open cells of TV panels to 2.5 per cent.
26. Direct Taxes

A. MSMEs and Professionals - MSMEs are growth engines of our economy. Micro
enterprises with turnover up to ₹2 crore and certain professionals with turnover of
up to ₹50 lakh can avail the benefit of presumptive taxation. The government
propose to provide enhanced limits of ₹3 crore and ₹75 lakh respectively to the
tax payers whose cash receipts are not more than 5 per cent. Moreover, to support
MSMEs in timely receipt of payments, the government propose to allow
deduction for expenditure incurred on payments made to them only when payment
is actually made.

B. Cooperations – New co-operatives that commence manufacturing activities till

31.03.2024 shall get a benefit of a lower tax rate of 15 per cent, as it is presently
available to new manufacturing companies.

C. Start-ups – Government propose to extend the date of incorporation for income

tax benefits to start-ups from 31.03.2023 to 31.03.2024. Government further
proposes to provide the benefit of carry forward of losses on change shareholding
of start-ups from seven years of incorporation to ten years.

D. Personal Income Tax

 Government proposes to increase the rebate limit to ₹ 7 lakh in the new tax
regime. Thus, persons in the new tax regime with income up to ₹7 lakh will not
have to pay any tax.

 The second proposal related to middle-class individuals. Government proposes to

change the tax structure in this regime by reducing the number of slabs to five and
increasing the tax exemption limit to ₹3 lakh. The new tax rates are:

₹0-3 lakh Nil

₹3-6 lakh 5 per cent
₹6-9 lakh 10 per cent
₹9-12 lakh 15 per cent
₹12-15 lakh 20 per cent
Above ₹15 lakh 30 per cent

 For the salaried class and pensioners including family pensioners, the government
propose to extend the benefit of standard deduction to the new tax regime. Each
salaried person with an income of ₹15.5 lakh or more will thus stand to benefit by
₹52,500.

 India has one of the highest tax rates in the world (42.74%). Government proposes
to reduce the highest surcharge rate from 37 per cent to 25 per cent in the new tax
regime. This would result in reduction of the maximum tax rate to 39 per cent.
 The limit of ₹3 lakh for tax exemption on leave encashment on retirement of non-
government salaried employees was last fixed in the year 2002, when the highest
basic pay in the government was ₹30,000/pm. In line with the increase in
government salaries, Government proposes to increase this limit to ₹25 lakh.