Union Budget 2021: Various new schemes and policies were announced during the budget presentation in the different sectors by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama in Union Budget 2021-22. Read the complete article to know what all schemes and policies were announced during the budget presentation by our Finance Minister. The budget was announced basically by Six Pillars i.e. Six Pillared Budget that is:
- Health and Wellbeing
- Physical & Financial Capital, and Infrastructure
- Inclusive Development for Aspirational India
- Reinvigorating Human Capital
- Innovation and R&D
- Minimum Government and Maximum Governance
List of all the Schemes and Policies Launched:
PM AatmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana
- PM AatmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana will be launched with an outlay of about Rs 64, 180 crores over 6 years.
- This will develop capacities of primary, secondary, and tertiary care Health Systems, strengthen existing national institutions and create new institutions, to cater to the detection and cure of new and emerging diseases.
- This will be in addition to the National Health Mission. The main interventions under the scheme are:
- Support for 17,788 rural and 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centers
- Setting up integrated public health labs in all districts and 3382 block public health units in 11 states;
- Establishing critical care hospital blocks in 602 districts and 12 central institutions;
- Strengthening of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), its 5 regional branches and 20 metropolitan health surveillance units;
- Expansion of the Integrated Health Information Portal to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs;
- Operationalization of 17 new Public Health Units and strengthening of 33 existing Public Health Units at Points of Entry, that is at 32 Airports, 11 Seaports, and 7 land crossings;
- Setting up of 15 Health Emergency Operation Centers and 2 mobile hospitals; and
- Setting up of a national institution for One Health, a Regional Research Platform for WHO southeast Asia Region, 9 Bio-Safety Level III laboratories, and 4 regional National Institutes for Virology.
Jal Jeevan Mission
- Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban), will be launched for universal water supply in all 4,378 Urban Local Bodies with 2.86 crore household tap connections, as well as liquid waste management in 500 AMRUT cities.
- It will be implemented over 5 years, with an outlay of Rs. 2,87,000 crore.
- Urban Swachh Bharat Mission will be implemented with a total financial allocation of Rs 1,41,678 crore over a period of 5 years from 2021-2026.
Problem of air pollution
- The government proposed to provide an amount of Rs. 2,217 crore for 42 urban centers with a million-plus population in this budget.
- Scrappage policy will be introduced Commercial vehicles will be going on automotive fitness test after 15 years of use while for a personal vehicle this is 20 years after use.
Scheme of Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA)
- To enable the textile industry to become globally competitive, attract large investments, and boost employment generation, a scheme of Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) will be launched in addition to the PLI scheme.
- This will create a world-class infrastructure with plug and play facilities to enable create global champions in exports. 7 Textile Parks will be established over 3 years.
Mission Poshan 2.0.
- To strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome, Government will merge the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the PoshanAbhiyan and launch the Mission Poshan 2.0.
- The government will adopt an intensified strategy to improve nutritional outcomes across 112 Aspirational Districts.
AatmaNirbhar Bharat-Production Linked Incentive Scheme
- PLI schemes to create manufacturing global champions for an AatmaNirbhar Bharat have been announced for 13 sectors. For this, the government has committed nearly Rs.1.97 lakh crore in the next 5 years starting FY 2021-22.
- The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) which the Finance Minister announced in December 2019 is the first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government exercise ever undertaken.
- The NIP was launched with 6835 projects; the project pipeline has now expanded to 7,400 projects.
- Around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure Ministries have been completed.
Asset Monetisation
- Monetizing operating public infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new infrastructure construction. A “National Monetization Pipeline” of potential Brownfield infrastructure assets will be launched.
- An Asset Monetization dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors. Some important measures in the direction of monetization are:
- National Highways Authority of India and PGCIL each have sponsored one InvIT that will attract international and domestic institutional investors. Five operational roads with an estimated enterprise value of Rs 5,000 crore are being transferred to the NHAIInvIT. Similarly, transmission assets of a value of Rs 7,000 crore will be transferred to the PGCIL InvIT.
- Railways will monetize Dedicated Freight Corridor assets for operations and maintenance, after commissioning.
- The next lot of Airports will be monetized for operations and management concession.
- Other core infrastructure assets that will be rolled out under the Asset Monetization Programme are (i) NHAI Operational Toll Roads (ii) Transmission Assets of PGCIL (iii) Oil and Gas Pipelines of GAIL, IOCL, and HPCL (iv) AAI Airports in Tier II and III cities, (v) Other Railway Infrastructure Assets (vi) Warehousing Assets of CPSEs such as Central Warehousing Corporation and NAFED among others and (vii) Sports Stadiums.
Bharatmala Pariyojana project
- Finance Minister announced that more than 13,000 km length of roads, at a cost of Rs 3.3 lakh crore, has already been awarded under the Rs. 5.35 lakh crore Bharatmala Pariyojana project of which 3,800 km have been constructed.
- By March 2022, the Government would be awarding another 8,500 km and complete an additional 11,000 km of national highway corridors.
- She also provided an enhanced outlay of Rs. 1,18,101 lakh crore for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, of which Rs.1,08,230 crore is for capital, the highest ever.
National Rail Plan for India
- Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan for India – 2030.
- The Plan is to create a ‘future-ready’ Railway system by 2030.
- It is expected that Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern DFC will be commissioned by June 2022.
For Passenger convenience and safety the following measures are proposed:
- Introduction of aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes to give a better travel experience to passengers.
- The safety measures undertaken in the past few years have borne results. To further strengthen this effort, high-density network and highly utilized network routes of Indian railways will be provided with an indigenously developed automatic train protection system that eliminates train collision due to human error.
- The budget also provided a record sum of Rs. 1,10,055 crore, for Railways of which Rs. 1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure.
A scheme to promote flagging of merchant ships in India:
- Major Ports will be moving from managing their operational services on their own to a model where a private partner will manage it for them.
- For this purpose, the budget proposes to offer more than Rs. 2,000 crore by Major Ports on Public-Private Partnership mode in FY21-22.
- A scheme to promote the flagging of merchant ships in India will be launched by providing subsidy support to Indian shipping companies in global tenders floated by Ministries and CPSEs.
- An amount of Rs. 1624 crore will be provided over 5 years. This initiative will enable greater training and employment opportunities for Indian seafarers besides enhancing Indian companies’ share in global shipping.
Ujjwala Scheme
- Ujjwala Scheme which has benefited 8 crore households will be extended to cover 1 crore more beneficiaries.
- The government will add 100 more districts in the next 3 years to the City Gas Distribution network.
- A gas pipeline project will be taken up in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
- An independent Gas Transport System Operator will be set up for facilitation and coordination of booking of common carrier capacity in all-natural gas pipelines on a non-discriminatory open access basis.
SWAMITVA Scheme
- Honorable Prime Minister had launched SWAMITVA Scheme.
- Under this, a record of rights is being given to property owners in villages.
- Up till now, about 1.80 lakh property-owners in 1,241 villages have been provided cards and the Finance Minister proposed during FY21-22 to extend this to cover all states/UTs.
- To provide adequate credit to our farmers, the Government has enhanced the agricultural credit target to Rs. 16.5 lakh crore in FY22. Similarly, the allocation to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund increased from Rs. 30,000 crore to Rs. 40,000 crore.
- The Micro Irrigation Fund, with a corpus of Rs.5,000 crore has been created under NABARD will be doubled.
Benefits for Farmers: Operation Green Scheme
- In an important announcement to boost value addition in agriculture and allied products and their exports, the scope of ‘Operation Green Scheme’ that is presently applicable to tomatoes, onions, and potatoes, will be enlarged to include 22 perishable products.
- Around 1.68 crore farmers are registered and Rs. 1.14 lakh crore of trade value has been carried out through e-NAMs.
- 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with e-NAM. To benefit farmers, the Finance Minister announced raising custom duty on cotton, raw silk, and silk yarn.
One Nation One Ration Card scheme
- The government has launched the One Nation One Ration Card scheme through which beneficiaries can claim their rations anywhere in the country.
- One Nation One Ration Card plan is under implementation by 32 states and UTs, reaching about 69 crore beneficiaries – that’s a total of 86% beneficiaries covered.
- The remaining 4 states and UTs will be integrated in the next few months.
Scheme of Stand Up India
- To further facilitate credit flow under the scheme of Stand Up India for SCs, STs, and women, the Finance Minister proposed to reduce the margin money requirement from 25% to 15% and to also include loans for activities allied to agriculture.
- A number of steps were taken to support the MSME sector and in this Budget, Government has provided Rs. 15,700 crore to this sector – more than double of this year’s BE.
Post Matric Scholarship Scheme
- The government has set a target of establishing 750 Eklavya model residential schools in tribal areas with an increase in the unit cost of each such school from Rs. 20 crore to Rs. 38 crore, and for hilly and difficult areas, to Rs. 48 crore.
- Under the revamped Post Matric Scholarship Scheme for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, the Central Assistance was enhanced and allocated Rs. 35,219 crore for 6 years till 2025-2026, to benefit 4 crore SC students.
Vishwas Scheme
- Stating the resolve of the Government to reduce litigation in the taxation system, the Finance Minister said that the Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Scheme announced by the Government has been received well.
- Until 30th January 2021, over one lakh ten thousand taxpayers have opted to settle tax disputes of over Rs. 85 thousand crores under the Scheme.
- To further reduce litigation of small taxpayers, she proposed to constitute a Dispute Resolution Committee.
- Anyone with a taxable income up to Rs. 50 lakh and disputed income up to Rs. 10 lakh shall be eligible to approach the Committee.
- FM also announced the setting up of National Faceless Income Tax Appellate Tribunal Centre.
