07 February 2024 – The Indian Express

Interim Budget 2024

• When the government requests approval from Parliament to fund expenditures for the first four months of the fiscal year (April–March), it is referred to as an interim budget or vote on account.
• maintaining current initiatives across industries, paying personnel, etc. — without altering the tax system
• until a new administration assumes power and submits a complete budget that has been updated for the entire fiscal year.

Important Points to Note:

Accommodations:

• The government would introduce a programme to assist middle class citizens who are “living in rented houses, or slums, or chawls and unauthorised colonies” in purchasing or building their own homes.
• Through rooftop solarization, up to 300 units of free electricity per month will be available to one crore families. “
• Under the PM Awas Yojana (Grameen), two crore more homes will be built over the course of the next five years in order to accommodate the growing number of families.

Wellness:

• girls between the ages of 9 and 14 receive vaccinations to prevent cervical cancer.
• The government intends to use the infrastructure of the current hospitals under different departments to establish more medical colleges.
• Anganwadi centre upgrades under “Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0” will happen more quickly.
• The U-WIN platform will be implemented as soon as possible to manage immunisations and the heightened activities of Mission Indradhanush.
• expansion of ASHA, Anganwadi, and Helper healthcare coverage under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

Agriculture and associated industries:

• All agroclimatic zones will see an increase in the application of Nano DAP on a variety of crops.
• For oil seeds, a plan will be developed to attain “atmanirbharta.”
• Concentrated oil seeds: sunflower, sesame, mustard, peanut, and soybean.
• A thorough plan of action to assist dairy farmers will be developed.
• Such a strategy will be guided by the achievements of current initiatives like the National Livestock Mission, the Infrastructure Development Funds, and the Rashtriya Gokul Mission, which focus on animal husbandry and dairy processing.

The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) will be implemented more aggressively in order to:

• increase the productivity of aquaculture from the current 3 to
• Five tonnes per acre
• up to ~ 1 lakh crore in exports
• create 55 lakh job possibilities in the foreseeable future.
• There will be five connected aqua parks built.

Ladies:

• Eighty-three lakh SHGs: From 2 crore to 3 crore is the government’s new ambition for Lakhpati Didi.
• Young People And Technology
• For the younger generation that is tech aware, a one lakh crore rupee corpus will be developed with a fifty-year loan that is interest-free.
• extended-term financing or refinancing with extended tenors and low or no interest rates will be made available by the corpus.
• A new plan aimed at advancing atma nirbharta and fortifying deep-tech innovations for defence will be introduced.
• Development of Infrastructure
• One percent more is being spent for the upcoming year.
• This corresponds to 4% of the GDP.

There will be three significant economic railway corridor initiatives put into action. These are the following:

• routes for energy, minerals, and cement
• corridors for port connectivity
• corridors with heavy traffic density.
• The PM Gati Shakti has designated the projects that will enable multi-modal connectivity.
• In major cities that prioritise transit-oriented development, the expansion of Metro and NaMO Bharat will receive funding.

Green energy and the environment:

• Funding for viability gaps will be made available to fully utilise the potential of offshore wind generation.
• By 2030, a 100 MT coal gasification and liquefaction capacity will be established.
• There will be financial support available to purchase machinery for aggregating biomass.
• Compressed biogas (CBG) will have to be gradually blended into piped natural gas (PNG) for home use and compressed natural gas (CNG) for transportation.
• Ecosystem for Electric Vehicles: Assistance with production and infrastructure for charging.
• Through payment security methods, e-bus use for public transportation networks will be encouraged.
• A new programme involving bio-manufacturing and bio-foundry will be introduced in order to encourage green growth.
• Blue Economy 2.0: An integrated, multi-sectoral strategy to coastal aquaculture and mariculture, as well as restoration and adaptation strategies, will be introduced.

Travel:

• States will be urged to embark on the thorough development of well-known tourism destinations, branding and promoting them internationally.
• There will be a system in place for classifying the centres according to the calibre of their amenities and offerings.
• States will receive long-term, interest-free loans in exchange for matching funds to fund this kind of development.
• In order to boost domestic tourism, our islands will implement projects aimed at improving port accessibility, infrastructure, and facilities. Lakshadweep will also be a part of it.

FDI:

• A golden period was marked by the USD 596 billion in FDI influx between 2014 and 2023.
• That amounts to twice the influx from 2005 to 2014.
• In the spirit of “first develop India,” bilateral investment treaties are being negotiated with foreign partners.

Population Growth and Shifts in Demographics:

• The government will establish a powerful committee to thoroughly examine the difficulties.
• Changes in the United States
• This year, a fifty-year interest-free loan totaling seventy-five thousand crore rupees is planned to help the State Governments’ reforms.

Updated Forecasts for 2023–2024:

• Tax receipts make up 23.24 lakh crore of the revised estimate of total receipts other than borrowings, which is Rs. 27.56 lakh crore.
• The overall estimated cost, as revised, is Rs. 44.90 lakh crore.
• It is anticipated that revenue receipts at Rs. 30.03 lakh crore will surpass the Budget Estimate.
• The budget deficit is estimated to be 5.8% of GDP in the revised estimate.

Budget Forecasts for 2024–2025:

• Following that trajectory, the projected fiscal deficit for 2024–2025 is 5.1% of GDP.
• This year, the fifty-year interest-free credit programme for state capital expenditures would be extended, costing a total of Rs. 1.3 lakh crore.
• The expected total expenditure and total receipts (excluding borrowings) are Rs. 47.66 lakh crore and Rs. 30.80 lakh crore, respectively.
• The expected amount of tax revenue is Rs. 26.02 lakh crore.

Direct Taxes:

• Over the past ten years, direct tax collections have more than tripled, while the number of return filers has increased to 2.4 times.
• Up from Rs. 2.2 lakh in the 2013–14 fiscal year, taxpayers with income up to Rs. 7 lakh are now exempt from taxation under the new tax structure.
• For retail firms, the presumed taxes threshold was raised from Rs. 2 crore to Rs. 3 crore.
• The presumptive taxation threshold for professionals was raised from Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 75 lakh.
• The corporate tax rate was lowered for both new and established domestic businesses, from thirty percent to twenty-two percent, and for specific manufacturing companies, to fifteen percent.
• With the advent of Faceless evaluation and Appeal, the long-standing jurisdiction-based evaluation system underwent a transformation that brought about increased efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
• The filing of tax returns has been simpler and easier with the introduction of revised income tax returns, a new Form 26AS, and prefilling of tax forms.
• Refunds are being processed faster this year thanks to a reduction in the average return processing time from 93 days in 2013–14 to only 10 days this year.

Indirect Taxes:

• Trade and industry now have less of a compliance burden thanks to GST.
• The GST tax base has more than doubled.
• At Rs. 1.66 lakh crore, the average monthly gross GST revenue has nearly doubled.
• In the post-GST era of 2017–18 to 2022–23, states’ SGST revenue, including compensation provided to states, attained a buoyancy of 1.22.
• Customs took a number of actions to ease international trade.

Tax Planning:

• There have been no tax adjustments; import charges and direct and indirect tax rates remain the same.
• Removal of unpaid direct tax requests up to twenty-five thousand rupees (Rs 25,000) (petty, non-verified, non-reconciled, or disputed direct tax demands, many dating back as far as 1962)
• Concerning the years 2009–10 and up to ten thousand rupees (Rs 10,000) for the fiscal years 2010–11 through 2014–15.