Announces 3 schemes for ‘Employment Linked Incentive’ schemes to check unemployment.
NEW DELHI, July 23 (The CONNECT) – Despite global economy remaining under the grip of policy uncertainties, India’s economic growth continues to be the shining exception and will remain so in the years ahead. Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today said that India’s inflation continues to be low, stable and moving towards the 4 per cent target.
Core inflation (non-food, non-fuel) currently is 3.1 per cent and steps are being taken to ensure supplies of perishable goods reach market adequately.
The Finance Minister said that as mentioned in the interim budget, the focus is on 4 major castes, namely ‘Garib’ (Poor), ‘Mahilayen’ (Women), ‘Yuva’ (Youth) and ‘Annadata’ (Farmer).
Budget Theme
Dwelling on the Budget theme, Sitharaman said, turning attention to the full year and beyond, in this budget, we particularly focus on employment, skilling, MSMEs, and the middle class. She announced the Prime Minister’s package of 5 schemes and initiatives to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth over a 5-year period with a central outlay of ₹2 lakh crore. This year, ₹1.48 lakh crore has been allocated for education, employment and skilling.
Budget Priorities
The finance minister said, for pursuit of ‘Viksit Bharat’, the budget envisages sustained efforts on the following 9 priorities for generating ample opportunities for all.
- Productivity and resilience in Agriculture
- Employment & Skilling
- Inclusive Human Resource Development and Social Justice
- Manufacturing & Services
- Urban Development
- Energy Security
- Infrastructure
- Innovation, Research & Development and
- Next Generation Reforms
Productivity and resilience in Agriculture
The Finance Minister announced that the government will undertake a comprehensive review of the agriculture research setup to bring the focus on raising productivity. New 109 high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties of 32 field and horticulture crops will be released for cultivation by farmers.
in the next two years, 1 crore farmers across the country will be initiated into natural farming supported by certification and branding.
10,000 need-based bio-input resource centres will be established.
For achieving self-sufficiency in pulses and oilseeds, government will strengthen their production, storage and marketing and to achieve ‘atmanirbharta’ for oil seeds such as mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, and sunflower.
Government, in partnership with the states, will facilitate the implementation of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in agriculture for coverage of farmers and their lands in 3 years.
Smt Sitharaman announced a provision of ₹1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sector this year.
Employment & Skilling
The Finance Minister said that the government will implement 3 schemes for ‘Employment Linked Incentive’, as part of the Prime Minister’s package. These will be based on enrolment in the EPFO, and focus on recognition of first-time employees, and support to employees and employers.
Government will also facilitate higher participation of women in the workforce through setting up of working women hostels in collaboration with industry, and establishing creches.
Referring to the Skilling programme, the Finance Minister announced a new centrally sponsored scheme, as the 4th scheme under the Prime Minister’s package, for skilling in collaboration with state governments and Industry. 20 lakh youth will be skilled over a 5-year period and 1,000 Industrial Training Institutes will be upgraded in hub and spoke arrangements with outcome orientation.
She also announced that the Model Skill Loan Scheme will be revised to facilitate loans up to
₹7.5 lakh with a guarantee from a government promoted Fund, which is expected to help 25,000 students every year.
For helping the youth, who have not been eligible for any benefit under government schemes and policies, she announced a financial support for loans upto ₹10 lakh for higher education in domestic institutions. E-vouchers for this purpose will be given directly to 1 lakh students every year for annual interest subvention of 3 per cent of the loan amount.
Inclusive Human Resource Development and Social Justice
Talking about the Saturation approach, the Finance Minister emphasised that implementation of schemes meant for supporting economic activities by craftsmen, artisans, self-help groups, scheduled caste, schedule tribe and women entrepreneurs, and street vendors, such as PM Vishwakarma, PM SVANidhi, National Livelihood Missions, and Stand-Up India will be stepped up.
Purvodaya
Government will formulate a plan, Purvodaya, for the all-round development of the eastern region of the country covering Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. This will cover human resource development, infrastructure, and generation of economic opportunities to make the region an engine to attain Viksit Bharat.
Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan
The Finance Minister announced that for improving the socio-economic condition of tribal communities, government will launch the Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan by adopting saturation coverage for tribal families in tribal-majority villages and aspirational districts covering 63,000 villages and benefitting 5 crore tribal people.
Support for promotion of MSMEs
Smt Sitharaman said, this budget provides special attention to MSMEs and manufacturing, particularly labour-intensive manufacturing. A separately constituted self-financing guarantee fund will provide, to each applicant, guarantee cover up to ₹100 crore, while the loan amount may be larger. Similarly, Public sector banks will build their in-house capability to assess MSMEs for credit, instead of relying on external assessment. She also announced a new mechanism for facilitating continuation of bank credit to MSMEs during their stress period.
Mudra Loans
The limit of Mudra loans will be enhanced to ₹ 20 lakh from the current ₹ 10 lakh for those entrepreneurs who have availed and successfully repaid previous loans under the ‘Tarun’ category.
MSME Units for Food Irradiation, Quality & Safety Testing
Financial support for setting up of 50 multi-product food irradiation units in the MSME sector will be provided. Setting up of 100 food quality and safety testing labs with NABL accreditation will also be facilitated. To enable MSMEs and traditional artisans to sell their products in international markets, E-Commerce Export Hubs will be set up in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode .
Internship in Top Companies
The Finance Minister said that as the 5th scheme under the Prime Minister’s package, government will launch a comprehensive scheme for providing internship opportunities in 500 top companies to 1 crore youth in 5 years.
Urban Housing
Under the PM AwasYojana Urban 2.0, housing needs of 1 crore urban poor and middle-class families will be addressed with an investment of ₹ 10 lakh crore. This will include the central assistance of ₹ 2.2 lakh crore in the next 5 years.
The Finance Minister announced that Phase IV of PMGSY will be launched to provide all-weather connectivity to 25,000 rural habitations which have become eligible in view of their population increase.
For Irrigation and Flood Mitigation in Bihar, through the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme and other sources, government will provide financial support for projects with estimated cost of ₹11,500 crore such as the Kosi-Mechi intra-state link and 20 other ongoing and new schemes including barrages, river pollution abatement and irrigation projects. Government will also provide assistance to Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim for flood management, landslides and related projects.
Economic Policy Framework
The Finance Minister said that the government will formulate an Economic Policy Framework to delineate the overarching approach to economic development and set the scope of the next generation of reforms for facilitating employment opportunities and sustaining high growth.
Labour related reforms
Government will facilitate the provision of a wide array of services to labour, including those for employment and skilling. A comprehensive integration of e-shram portal with other portals will facilitate such one-stop solution. Shram Suvidha and Samadhan portals will be revamped to enhance ease of compliance for industry and trade.
Water Supply and Sanitation
In partnership with the State Governments and Multilateral Development Banks, government will promote water supply, sewage treatment and solid waste management projects and services for 100 large cities through bankable projects.
PM SVANidhi
She added that building on the success of PM SVANidhi Scheme in transforming the lives of street vendors, Government envisions a scheme to support each year, over the next five years, the development of 100 weekly ‘haats’ or street food hubs in select cities.
The Finance Minister said, in line with the announcement in the interim budget, PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana has been launched to install rooftop solar plants to enable 1 crore households obtain free electricity up to 300 units every month. The scheme has generated remarkable response with more than 1.28 crore registrations and 14 lakh applications.
Nuclear energy is expected to form a very significant part of the energy mix for Viksit Bharat.
The Government will implement 3 schemes for ‘Employment Linked Incentive’, as part of the Prime Minister’s package. These will be based on enrolment in the EPFO, and focus on recognition of first-time employees, and support to employees and employers. This was announced by Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today. The three schemes to be implemented are as below:
Scheme A: First Timers
The Union Finance Minister said that this scheme will provide one-month wage to all persons newly entering the workforce in all formal sectors. The direct benefit transfer of one-month salary in 3 instalments to first-time employees, as registered in the EPFO, will be up to ` 15,000. The eligibility limit will be a salary of ` 1 lakh per month. “The scheme is expected to benefit 210 lakh youth”, she said.
Scheme B: Job Creation in manufacturing
The Union Finance Minister stated that this scheme will incentivize additional employment in the manufacturing sector, linked to the employment of first-time employees. An incentive will be provided at specified scale directly both to the employee and the employer with respect to their EPFO contribution in the first 4 years of employment. Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the scheme is expected to benefit 30 lakh youth entering employment and their employers.
Scheme C: Support to employers
This employer-focused scheme will cover additional employment in all sectors, said the Union Finance Minister. All additional employment within a salary of ` 1 lakh per month will be counted. The Government will reimburse to employers up to ` 3,000 per month for 2 years towards their EPFO contribution for each additional employee. “The scheme is expected to incentivize additional employment of 50 lakh persons”, she added.
The Government will launch a comprehensive scheme for providing internship opportunities in top companies. This will be the 5th scheme under the Prime Minister’s package.
While presenting the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today, the Union Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the scheme will provide internship opportunities in 500 top companies to 1 crore youth in 5 years. They will gain exposure for 12 months to real-life business environment, varied professions and employment opportunities, she said.
An internship allowance of ` 5,000 per month along with a one-time assistance of ` 6,000 will be provided to the youth. Companies will be expected to bear the training cost and 10 per cent of the internship cost from their CSR funds, the Finance Minister added.
Union Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a new centrally sponsored scheme as the 4th scheme under the Prime Minister’s package, for skilling in collaboration with State governments and industry. While presenting the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today, the Finance Minister said that 20 lakh youth will be skilled over a 5-year period and 1,000 Industrial Training Institutes will be upgraded in hub and spoke arrangements with outcome orientation. The Finance Minister stated that course content and design will be aligned to the skill needs of industry and new courses will be introduced for emerging needs.
With regard to skilling loans, the Finance Minister announced that the Model Skill Loan Scheme will be revised to facilitate loans up to ` 7.5 lakh with a guarantee from a government promoted Fund. This measure is expected to help 25,000 students every year.
In order to facilitate trade, several amendments have been made to the GST Laws. As part of this, Extra Neutral Alcohol used in manufacture of liquor will be kept out of the purview of the central tax. Similar amendments are also proposed in IGST and UTGST Act. Further, newly added Section 11A will empower the government to regularize non-levy or short levy of central tax due to any general practice prevalent in trade.
The time limit to avail input tax credit has been relaxed by inserting two new subsections to Section 16 of CGST. The amended Act will also provide a common time limit for issuance of demand notices and orders. Also, the time limit for tax payers to avail the benefit of reduced penalty, by paying demanded tax along with interest is increased from 30 days to 60 days.
In order to further facilitate trade, the maximum amount of pre-deposit for filing appeal with the Appellate Authority is being reduced from Rs.25 crore of central tax to Rs 20 crore of central tax. The amount of pre-deposit for filing appeal with the Appellate Tribunal is being reduced from 20% with a maximum amount of Rs. 50 crore of central tax to 10 % with a maximum of Rs. 20 crore of central tax. Besides, the time limit for filing appeals before the Appellate Tribunal is being modified with effect from 1st August, 2024 to avoid the appeals from getting time barred, on account of Appellate Tribunal not coming into operation.
Apart from these, several other changes such as empowering government to notify GST Appellate Tribunal to handle anti-profiteering cases have been brought to ease trade.
Pointing out the success of GST, Finance Minister also said that to multiply the benefits of GST, the tax structure have been further simplified and rationalized and expanded to remaining sectors.
TRANSFORMING AGRICULTURE RESEARCH
The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the Government will undertake a comprehensive review of the agriculture research setup to bring the focus on raising productivity and developing climate resilient varieties. While presenting the Union Budget 2024-2025 in the Parliament today, she said funding will be provided in challenge mode, including to the private sector. The Union Minister added that domain experts both from the Government and outside will oversee the conduct of such research. The Budget also announced that new 109 high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties of 32 field and horticulture crops will be released for cultivation by farmers.
NATURAL FARMING
The Finance Minister also announced that in the next two years, one crore farmers across the country will be initiated into natural farming supported by certification and branding. She said implementation will be through scientific institutions and willing gram panchayats and 10,000 need-based bio-input resource centres will be established for the purpose.
NATIONAL COOPERATION POLICY
The Union Minister said that Government will bring out a National Cooperation Policy for systematic, orderly and all-round development of the cooperative sector. She said that fast-tracking growth of rural economy and generation of employment opportunities on a large scale will be the policy goal.
The Union Budget 2024-25 presented in Parliament today by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs strongly signalled Government’s commitment for enhancing women’s role in economic development.
The Union Finance Minister announced an allocation of more than Rs. 3 lakh crore for schemes benefitting women and girls. This is envisaged as a measure to promote women-led development, she elaborated.
