The Finance Minister announced that a new centrally sponsored scheme, PM AatmaNirbhar SwasthBharat Yojana, will be launched with an outlay of about Rs 64, 180 crore over 6 years. This willdevelop capacities of primary, secondary, and tertiary care Health Systems, strengthen existingnational institutions, and create new institutions, to cater to detection and cure of new and emergingdiseases. This will be in addition to the National Health Mission. The main interventions under thescheme are:1.a. Support for 17,788 rural and 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centersb. Setting up integrated public health labs in all districts and 3382 block public health units in 11 states;c. Establishing critical care hospital blocks in 602 districts and 12 central institutions;d. Strengthening of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), its 5 regional branches and 20 metropolitan health surveillance units;e. Expansion of the Integrated Health Information Portal to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs;f. Operationalisation 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;g. Setting up of 15 Health Emergency Operation Centers and 2 mobile hospitals; and h. Setting up of a national institution for One Health, a Regional Research Platform for WHO South East Asia Region, 9 Bio-Safety Level III laboratories and 4 regional National Institutes for Virology. VaccinesProvision of Rs 35,000 crore made for Covid-19 vaccine in BE 2021-22.The Pneumococcal Vaccine, a Made in India product, presently limited to only 5 states, will be rolledout across the country aimed at averting 50,000 child deaths annually.NutritionTo strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome, Government will merge the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the Poshan Abhiyan and launch the Mission Poshan 2.0.Government will adopt an intensified strategy to improve nutritional outcomes across 112 Aspirational Districts. Universal Coverage of Water Supply and Swachch Bharat Mission
The Finance Minister announced that the JalJeevan 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. Moreover, the 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. Also to tackle the burgeoning problem of air pollution, government proposed to provide an amount of Rs. 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres with a million-plus population in this budget. A voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and unfit vehicles was also announced. Fitness tests have been proposed inautomated fitness centres after 20 years in case of personal vehicles, and after 15 years in case of commercial vehicles2. Physical and Financial Capital and Infrastructure Aatma Nirbhar Bharat-Production Linked Incentive SchemeFinance Minister said that for a USD 5 trillion economy, our manufacturing sector has to grow in double digits on a sustained basis. Our manufacturing companies need to become an integral part of global supply chains, possess core competence and cutting-edge technology. To achieve all of the above, PLI schemes to create manufacturing global champions for an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat have been announced for 13 sectors. For this, the government has committed nearly Rs.1.97 lakh crore in thenext 5 years starting FY 2021-22. This initiative will help bring scale and size in key sectors, create and nurture global champions and provide jobs to our youth. TextilesSimilarly, 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 world class infrastructure with plug and play facilities to enable create global champions in exports. 7 Textile Parks will be established over 3 years. InfrastructureThe 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 Rs1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure Ministries have been completed.
In order to promote International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in GIFT City, the Budgetproposes more tax incentives. The Budget proposes that details of capital gains from listed securities, dividend income andinterest from banks, post office etc. will also be pre-filled to ease filing of returns. Details of salaryincome, tax payment, TDS etc already come pre-filled in returns. In order to reduce compliance burden on the small charitable trust running educational institutionsand hospitals, the Budget proposes to increase the limit on annual receipts for these trusts frompresent Rs.1 Crore to Rs. 5 Crore for non-applicability of various compliances. INDIRECT TAX PROPOSALSOn the issue of Indirect Tax proposals, the Minister said that record GST collections have been madein the last few months. She said several measures have been taken to further simplify the GST. Thecapacity of GSTN system has been announced. Deep analytics and artificial intelligence have beendeployed to identity tax evaders and fake billers, launching special drives against them. The FinanceMinister assured the House that every possible measure shall be taken to smoothen the GST furtherand remove anomalies such as the inverted duty structure. With respect to the custom duty policy, the Finance Minister said that it has the twin objectives ofpromoting domestic manufacturing and helping India get on to global value change and export better.She said that the thrust now has to be on easy access to raw materials and exports of value addedproducts. In this regard, she proposed to review 400 old exemptions in the custom duty structure thisyear. She announced that extensive consultation will be conducted and from 1st October, 2021, arevised custom duty structure free of distortions will be put in place. She also proposed that any newcustom duty exemptions henceforth will have validity upto to the 31st March following 2 years of thedate of its issue. The Finance Minister announced withdrawal of a few exemptions on parts of chargers and sub-parts of mobile phones further some parts of mobiles will move from “NIL” rate to a moderate 2.5per cent. She also announced reducing custom duty uniformly to 7.5 per cent on semis, flat, and longproducts of non-alloy and stainless steel. She also announced exempting duty on steel scrap for aperiod upto 31st March 2022. Stressing on the need to rationalize duty on raw material inputs to man-made textile, the FinanceMinister announced bringing nylon chain on par with polyester and other man-made fibers.Announcing uniform deduction of the BCD rates on Caprolactam, nylon chips and nylon fiber andyarn to 5 per cent, the Minister said this will help the textile industry, MSMEs and exports too. Shealso announced calibration of customs duty rate on chemical to encourage domestic value addition
and to remove inversions. The Minister also announced rationalization of custom duty on gold andsilver. The Finance Minister said that a phased manufacturing plan for solar cells and solar panels will benotified to build up domestic capacity. She announced raising duty on solar inverter from 5 per centto 20 percent and on solar lanterns from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. The Finance Minister in her Budget speech said that there is immense potential in manufacturingheavy capital equipment domestically and the rate structure will be comprehensively reviewed in duecourse. However, she announced revision in duty rates on certain items immediately including tunnelboring machine and certain auto parts. The Budget proposes certain changes to benefit MSMEs which include increasing duty on steelscrews, plastic builder wares and prawn feed. It also provide for rationalizing exemption on import ofduty free items as an incentives to exporters of garments leather and handicraft items. It also provideswithdrawing exemption on imports of certain kind of leather and raising custom duty on finishedsynthetic gem stones. To benefit farmers, the Finance Minister announced raising custom duty on cotton, raw silk andsilk yarn. She also announced withdrawing end-use based concessions on denatured ethyl alcohol. The Minister also proposed an Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess on a small number ofitems. She said “while applying the cess, we have taken care not to put additional burden onconsumers on most items. Regarding rationalization of procedures and easing of compliance, the Finance Minister proposedcertain changes in the provisions relating to ADD and CVD levies. She also said that to completecustoms investigation, definite time-lines are being prescribed. The Minister said that the TurantCustom Initiative rolled out in 2020 has helped in putting a check of misuse of FTAs.
In order to promote International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in GIFT City, the Budget proposes more tax incentives. The Budget proposes that details of capital gains from listed securities, dividend income andinterest from banks, post office etc. will also be pre-filled to ease filing of returns. Details of salaryincome, tax payment, TDS etc already come pre-filled in returns. In order to reduce compliance burden on the small charitable trust running educational institutionsand hospitals, the Budget proposes to increase the limit on annual receipts for these trusts frompresent Rs.1 Crore to Rs. 5 Crore for non-applicability of various compliances. INDIRECT TAX PROPOSALSOn the issue of Indirect Tax proposals, the Minister said that record GST collections have been madein the last few months. She said several measures have been taken to further simplify the GST. Thecapacity of GSTN system has been announced. Deep analytics and artificial intelligence have beendeployed to identity tax evaders and fake billers, launching special drives against them. The FinanceMinister assured the House that every possible measure shall be taken to smoothen the GST furtherand remove anomalies such as the inverted duty structure. With respect to the custom duty policy, the Finance Minister said that it has the twin objectives ofpromoting domestic manufacturing and helping India get on to global value change and export better.She said that the thrust now has to be on easy access to raw materials and exports of value addedproducts. In this regard, she proposed to review 400 old exemptions in the custom duty structure thisyear. She announced that extensive consultation will be conducted and from 1st October, 2021, arevised custom duty structure free of distortions will be put in place. She also proposed that any newcustom duty exemptions henceforth will have validity upto to the 31st March following 2 years of thedate of its issue. The Finance Minister announced withdrawal of a few exemptions on parts of chargers and sub-parts of mobile phones further some parts of mobiles will move from “NIL” rate to a moderate 2.5per cent. She also announced reducing custom duty uniformly to 7.5 per cent on semis, flat, and longproducts of non-alloy and stainless steel. She also announced exempting duty on steel scrap for aperiod upto 31st March 2022. Stressing on the need to rationalize duty on raw material inputs to man-made textile, the FinanceMinister announced bringing nylon chain on par with polyester and other man-made fibers.Announcing uniform deduction of the BCD rates on Caprolactam, nylon chips and nylon fiber andyarn to 5 per cent, the Minister said this will help the textile industry, MSMEs and exports too. Shealso announced calibration of customs duty rate on chemical to encourage domestic value addition
and to remove inversions. The Minister also announced rationalization of custom duty on gold andsilver. The Finance Minister said that a phased manufacturing plan for solar cells and solar panels will benotified to build up domestic capacity. She announced raising duty on solar inverter from 5 per centto 20 percent and on solar lanterns from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. The Finance Minister in her Budget speech said that there is immense potential in manufacturingheavy capital equipment domestically and the rate structure will be comprehensively reviewed in duecourse. However, she announced revision in duty rates on certain items immediately including tunnelboring machine and certain auto parts. The Budget proposes certain changes to benefit MSMEs which include increasing duty on steelscrews, plastic builder wares and prawn feed. It also provide for rationalizing exemption on import ofduty free items as an incentives to exporters of garments leather and handicraft items. It also provideswithdrawing exemption on imports of certain kind of leather and raising custom duty on finishedsynthetic gem stones. To benefit farmers, the Finance Minister announced raising custom duty on cotton, raw silk andsilk yarn. She also announced withdrawing end-use based concessions on denatured ethyl alcohol. The Minister also proposed an Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess on a small number ofitems. She said “while applying the cess, we have taken care not to put additional burden onconsumers on most items. Regarding rationalization of procedures and easing of compliance, the Finance Minister proposedcertain changes in the provisions relating to ADD and CVD levies. She also said that to completecustoms investigation, definite time-lines are being prescribed. The Minister said that the TurantCustom Initiative rolled out in 2020 has helped in putting a check of misuse of FTAs.
