Presenting the first ever digital Union Budget, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman stated that India’s fight against COVID-19 continues into 2021 and that this moment in history, when the political, economic, and strategic relations in the post-COVID world are changing, is the dawn of a new era – one in which India is well-poised to truly be the land of promise and hope.
The key highlights of the Union Budget 2021-22 are as follows:
6 pillars of the Union Budget 2021-22:
- 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
- Health and Wellbeing
- Rs. 2,23,846 crore outlay for Health and Wellbeing in BE 2021-22 as against Rs. 94,452 crore in BE 2020-21 – an increase of 137%
- Focus on strengthening three areas: Preventive, Curative, and Wellbeing
- Steps being taken for improving health and wellbeing:
- Vaccines
- Rs. 35,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccine in BE 2021-22
- The Made-in-India Pneumococcal Vaccine to be rolled out across the country, from present 5 states – to avert 50,000 child deaths annually
- Health Systems
- Rs. 64,180 crore outlay over 6 years for PM AatmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana – a new centrally sponsored scheme to be launched, in addition to NHM
- Main interventions under PM AatmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana:
- National Institution for One Health
- 17,788 rural and 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centers
- 4 regional National Institutes for Virology
- 15 Health Emergency Operation Centers and 2 mobile hospitals
- Integrated public health labs in all districts and 3382 block public health units in 11 states
- 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
- 17 new Public Health Units and strengthening of 33 existing Public Health Units
- Regional Research Platform for WHO South-East Asia Region
- 9 Bio-Safety Level III laboratories
- Nutrition
- Mission Poshan 2.0 to be launched:
- To strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome
- Merging the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the Poshan Abhiyan
- Intensified strategy to be adopted to improve nutritional outcomes across 112 Aspirational Districts
- Universal Coverage of Water Supply
- Rs. 2,87,000 crore over 5 years for Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban) – to be launched with an aim to provide:
- 2.86 crore household tap connections
- Universal water supply in all 4,378 Urban Local Bodies
- Liquid waste management in 500 AMRUT cities
- Swachch Bharat, Swasth Bharat
- Rs. 1,41,678 crore over 5 years for Urban Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0
- Main interventions under Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 2.0:
- Complete faecal sludge management and waste water treatment
- Source segregation of garbage
- Reduction in single-use plastic
- Reduction in air pollution by effectively managing waste from construction-and-demolition activities
- Bio-remediation of all legacy dump sites
- Clean Air
- Rs. 2,217 crore to tackle air pollution, for 42 urban centers with a million-plus population
- Scrapping Policy
- Voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and unfit vehicles
- Fitness tests in automated fitness centres:
- After 20 years in case of personal vehicles
- After 15 years in case of commercial vehicles
- Physical and Financial Capital and Infrastructure
- Production Linked Incentive scheme (PLI)
- Rs. 1.97 lakh crore in next 5 years for PLI schemes in 13 Sectors
- To create and nurture manufacturing global champions for an AatmaNirbhar Bharat
- To help manufacturing companies become an integral part of global supply chains, possess core competence and cutting-edge technology
- To bring scale and size in key sectors
- To provide jobs to the youth
- Textiles
- Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) scheme, in addition to PLI:
- 7 Textile Parks to be established over 3 years
- Textile industry to become globally competitive, attract large investments and boost employment generation & exports
- Infrastructure
- National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) expanded to 7,400 projects:
- Around 217 projects worth Rs. 1.10 lakh crore completed
- Measures in three thrust areas to increase funding for NIP:
- Creation of institutional structures
- Big thrust on monetizing assets
- Enhancing the share of capital expenditure
- Creation of institutional structures: Infrastructure Financing
- Rs. 20,000 crore to set up and capitalise a Development Financial Institution(DFI) – to act as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing
- Rs. 5 lakh crore lending portfolio to be created under the proposed DFI in 3 years
- Debt Financing by Foreign Portfolio Investors to be enabled by amending InvITs’ and REITs’ legislations
- Big thrust on monetizing assets
- National Monetization Pipeline to be launched
- Important asset monetization measures:
- 5 operational toll roads worth Rs. 5,000 crore being transferred to the NHAIInvIT
- Transmission assets worth Rs. 7,000 crore to be transferred to the PGCILInvIT
- Dedicated Freight Corridor assets to be monetized by Railways, for operations and maintenance, after commissioning
- Next lot of Airports to be monetized for operations and management concession
- Other core infrastructure assets to be rolled out under the Asset Monetization Programme:
- Oil and Gas Pipelines of GAIL, IOCL and HPCL
- AAI Airports in Tier II and III cities
- Other Railway Infrastructure Assets
- Warehousing Assets of CPSEs such as Central Warehousing Corporation and NAFED
- Sports Stadiums
- Sharp Increase in Capital Budget
- Rs. 5.54 lakh crore capital expenditure in BE 2021-22 – sharp increase of 34.5% over Rs. 4.12 lakh crore allocated in BE 2020-21 :
- Over Rs. 2 lakh crore to States and Autonomous Bodies for their Capital Expenditure.
- Over Rs. 44,000 crore for the Department of Economic Affairs to provide for projects/programmes/departments exhibiting good progress on Capital Expenditure
- Roads and Highways Infrastructure
- Rs. 1,18,101 lakh crore, highest ever outlay, for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways – of which Rs. 1,08,230 crore is for capital
- Under the Rs. 5.35 lakh crore Bharatmala Pariyojana, more than 13,000 km length of roads worth Rs. 3.3 lakh crore awarded for construction:
- 3,800 km have already been constructed
- Another 8,500 km to be awarded for construction by March 2022
- Additional 11,000 km of national highway corridors to be completed by March 2022
- Economic corridors being planned:
- Rs. 1.03 lakh crore outlay for 3,500 km of NHs in Tamil Nadu
- Rs. 65,000 crore investment for 1,100 km of NHs in Kerala
- Rs. 25,000 crore for 675 km of NHs in West Bengal
- Over Rs. 34,000 crore to be allocated for 1300 km of NHs to be undertaken in next 3 years in Assam, in addition to Rs. 19,000 crore works of NHs currently in progress in the State
- Flagship Corridors/Expressways:
- Delhi-Mumbai Expressway – Remaining 260 km to be awarded before 31.3.2021
- Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway – 278 km to be initiated in the current FY; construction to begin in 2021-22
- Kanpur-Lucknow Expressway – 63 km expressway providing an alternate route to NH 27 to be initiated in 2021-22
- Delhi-Dehradun economic corridor – 210 km to be initiated in the current FY; construction to begin in 2021-22
- Raipur-Vishakhapatnam – 464 km passing through Chhattisgarh, Odisha and North Andhra Pradesh, to be awarded in the current year; construction to start in 2021-22
- Chennai-Salem corridor – 277 km expressway to be awarded and construction to start in 2021-22
- Amritsar-Jamnagar – Construction to commence in 2021-22
- Delhi-Katra – Construction will commence in 2021-22
- Advanced Traffic management system in all new 4 and 6-lane highways:
- Speed radars
- Variable message signboards
- GPS enabled recovery vans will be installed
