न्यू रिजीम में 7.75 लाख तक की इनकम टैक्स फ्री: नीतीश को 58 हजार 900 करोड़, नायडू को 15 हजार करोड़; समझिए पूरा बजट

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday set a record by presenting the budget for the seventh consecutive time. In her speech of 1 hour 23 minutes, she talked about focusing on education, employment, farmers, women and youth.

For those who choose the new tax regime in the budget, income up to Rs 7.75 lakh has now become tax free. That means they have got a benefit of Rs 17.5 thousand.

The Finance Minister gave packages of 58 thousand 900 crores to Nitish Kumar’s Bihar and 15 thousand crores to Chandrababu Naidu’s Andhra Pradesh. Nitish’s JDU has 12 MPs and Naidu’s TDP has 16 MPs at the Centre.

Those who are employed for the first time and their salary is less than Rs 1 lakh, the government will give them a maximum of Rs 15,000 in three installments.

The central government has announced to provide internship to 1 crore youth in 500 top companies. During this period, the interns will be given a stipend of 5 thousand rupees every month and a one-time support of 6 thousand rupees. The central government has increased the amount of Mudra loan for MSMEs from 10 lakh to 20 lakh rupees.

Now see who got what in the budget:

1. Taxpayers: New regime gives benefit of ₹17.5 thousand in income tax
Under the new tax regime, now 5% tax will have to be paid on income between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 7 lakh. Earlier it was up to Rs 6 lakh. Changes have also been made in the rest of the slabs of the new tax regime. These two changes will benefit taxpayers by up to Rs 17,500. No changes have been made in the old tax regime.

2. Education, training, employment: Education loan, paid internship, money in EPF
₹1.48 lakh crore has been allocated for education. This is 32% more than the previous budget. 6 schemes related to jobs and skill training have been announced.

3. Young businessmen: Mudra loan increased from ₹ 10 lakh to ₹ 20 lakh
Under the Mudra scheme, loans are given in categories to people who start their own business. There are three categories of these, Shishu, Kishor and Tarun. In the third category, the loan amount has been doubled.

4. Agriculture: New Kisan Credit Cards in 5 states, Samman Nidhi not increased
1.52 lakh crore rupees were given for agriculture and related sectors. Last year 1.25 lakh crore rupees were given. This means that this time the budget for farmers was increased by 21.6% i.e. 27 thousand crore rupees.

However, despite the continuous demand of the farmers, no announcement was made in the budget regarding the Minimum Support Price (MSP). The amount of Kisan Samman Nidhi was also not increased, it will remain Rs 6,000 only. However, the announcement of issuing new Kisan Credit Cards was made in 5 states.

5. Health: 3 cancer medicines are custom duty free, no new announcement on Ayushman
Health is not included in the 9 priorities mentioned by the government. A big announcement related to the Ayushman Bharat scheme was expected from the budget, but it did not happen.

The government has reduced the custom duty on 3 cancer medicines to zero, meaning there will be no tax on their import. This can make cancer treatment a bit cheaper. The Finance Minister has talked about opening new medical colleges and hospitals, but has not disclosed the allocation of funds for this.

6. Defense: Budget increased by ₹ 400 crores, most of the increase is in salary and pension
The army has received Rs 6,21,940 crore for expenditure, which is only Rs 400 crore i.e. 0.064% more than the interim budget. In this, the budget for purchase of weapons and salary-pension remains the same. The increase of Rs 400 crore has gone to the Defense Ministry.

For the third consecutive year, the capital budget, that is, the expenditure on the purchase of weapons and modernization of the army, has been cut. 67.7% of the defense budget has been allocated to the revenue and pension budget, most of which is spent on distributing salaries and pensions.

7. Infrastructure: Roads, industrial areas and infra projects in 5 states
A provision of Rs 11.11 lakh crore has been made for infrastructure development in the budget. This includes roads, industrial areas and infra projects to be done in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh under the Purvodaya scheme.

8. 58,900 crores to Bihar and 15,000 crores to Andhra
Modi Government 3.0 is ruling the Centre with the support of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s JDU and Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP. The Finance Minister announced Rs 58,900 crore for infrastructure and other projects in Bihar and Rs 15,000 crore for the development of Andhra Pradesh’s new capital Amaravati.

9. Cheap-Expensive: Mobile phones, gold-silver are cheap; plastic goods are expensive

Broadly, custom duty has been reduced on 7 items and increased on 2. This can make around 7 products cheaper and 2 products costlier. Custom duty on mobile phones, chargers and gold-silver jewellery has been reduced to 6%. On the other hand, this duty has been increased on plastic. This can make plastic products costlier. However, it is not clear how much these products will become cheaper or costlier.

10. Aid to pro-China Maldives reduced, Sri Lanka will get more aid
22 thousand 154 crore rupees have been given to the Ministry of External Affairs. Last year, 29 thousand 121 crore rupees were given to the Ministry of External Affairs. 6,967 thousand crore rupees have been cut from this. In the budget of the Ministry of External Affairs, funds have been allocated for economic assistance to India’s neighboring and friendly countries under the ‘Neighbors First Policy’ and ‘Sagar Mission’.

These include 10 countries including Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. The highest package of Rs 2068 crore has been kept for Bhutan. This is about Rs 400 crore less than last year.

The biggest cut in the budget has been made in the package of pro-China Maldives. In 2023, the financial aid for Maldives was increased from 183 crores to 770 crores. This year it has been reduced to 400 crores.

There has been an increase in the budget for Sri Lanka and Nepal. In this, the aid to Sri Lanka has been increased more than 4 times from 60 crores to 245 crores. Whereas in Nepal, despite the formation of the government of China-supported KP Oli, the financial aid for the country has been increased from 650 crores to 700 crores.

Finance Minister presented a budget of 48.20 lakh crores, 6.58% more than last time

Other budget announcements: