India’s Union Budget 2021 is to be presented on Monday, 1st of February 2021, by our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Everyone is curiously waiting and have been eyeing this year’s budget, considering that this will be the first budget announcement after the nation has suffered an enormous fall in economic growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. People have been expecting a lot more from the upcoming budget for different sectors like the railways, infrastructure industry, agriculture, education, and the aviation sector, as all these sectors have faced a major impact due to the crisis caused by the pandemic outbreak. This year’s Budget is to be presented during a tough phase for the economy.
The upcoming budget declaration has been described as an event that happened “never before” by the Finance Minister, who recently has winded-up the pre-Budget deliberations, and people are having high hopes from Nirmala Sitharaman’s declaration on 1st February. Now. as we are all waiting for the Union Budget 2021 to be announced, here are some recent changes in the Budget presentation.
As per the very first advance estimations, the Indian economy is moving towards getting down by 7.7 percent in 2020-21. The economy got into a technical recession after its two successive quarters of decline. Whoever, the contractions slowed down noticeably in the second quarter of FY21 led by suppressed people’s demands and also the festival purchases.
● What to expect?
The government has made it very clear that they won’t be shying away from spending money to bring back the economy to a better position. The infrastructure push will have a multiplier effect.
The finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the small concerns won’t be holding her back from pump-priming the economy by making the pockets a little lighter.
Any further relaxations in tax could prove to be difficult for the government as it is already struggling with a difficult situation. The Budget could focus more on generating non-taxable revenue and a large-scale asset sale program could likely be the next thing.
● A Paperless Budget:
Reports also suggest that the finance ministry has resolved that the Budget 2021 would be paperless. Soft copies of the budget would be circulated among members of the parliament.
● Growth And Recovery:
Needless to mention, the biggest worry at this moment is the further contraction of the GDP. The first advance estimations of the growth, which was released indicated that the GDP will further contract by 7.7 percent in 2020-21.
Nirmala Sitharaman has stated that reviving growth, extending support to the severely hit sectors and the ones who have been financially impacted in 2020 will be the topmost priority of the government.
This clearly indicates that the government will be focusing on boosting the areas of growth while also taking adequate measures to fill the huge pits that are left behind by the pandemic.
Growth and recovery could become the essence of this budget. This could be so, as the government is expected to put in more money towards local infrastructure, skill development, and manufacturing — all of which will lead to the creation of more jobs.
● Focus On Agriculture:
There could be many reasons at the current time for the government to focus on agriculture. The top most of the reasons could be that it was one of the few sectors that performed strongly during the pandemic.
With the currently ongoing farmers’ riots in New Delhi, the government is expected to send around a positive message to the farmers of our country. Therefore, farmer welfare might be the central focus of this budget.
The government had earlier promised to double the farmers’ income by 2022 — a promise that the government officials often repeat. Earlier many unsuccessful actions were taken, but a change of strategy seems to be the need of the hour.
As we are close to Budget 2021-22, a simple calculation makes it clear that a lot of focus would be on details of the allocation percentages, tax benefits, and deficit numbers, etc.
But the real question is: Will the Budget lay a clear plan to equip the five giants?
The question cannot be accurately given. Whatever step the government takes, there will always be a supporting and an opposing party. The only thing that needed to be made sure of is that the supporting party is the majority.
