Focuses On Employment, Skilling, MSME’s, Middle Class

New Delhi: Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman tabled Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament on Tuesday.
She 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).
Dwelling on the Budget theme, Smt 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 five 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 Rs 2 lakh crore. This year, Rs1.48 lakh crore has been allocated for education, employment and skilling.
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.
Priority 1: 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 Rs1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sector this year.
Priority 2: 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
Rs7.5 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 Rs10 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.
Priority 3: 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.
More than 100 branches of India Post Payment Bank will be set up in the North East region to expand the banking services.
She said, a provision of Rs2.66 lakh crore for rural development including rural infrastructure was made this year.
Priority 4: Manufacturing & Services
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 Rs100 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 Rs 20 lakh from the current Rs 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.
Priority 5: Urban Development
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 Rs 10 lakh crore. This will include the central assistance of Rs 2.2 lakh crore in the next 5 years.
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.
Priority 6: Energy Security
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.
Priority 7: Infrastructure
The Finance Minister underlined that significant investment the Central Government has made over the years in building and improving infrastructure has had a strong multiplier effect on the economy. Government will endeavour to maintain strong fiscal support for infrastructure over the next 5 years, in conjunction with imperatives of other priorities and fiscal consolidation. Rs11,11,111 crore for capital expenditure has been allocated this year, which is 3.4 per cent of our GDP.
Pradhan Mantri Gram SadakYojana (PMGSY)
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 Rs11,500 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.
Priority 8: Innovation, Research & Development
The Finance Minister said that government will operationalize the Anusandhan National Research Fund for basic research and prototype development and set up a mechanism for spurring private sector-driven research and innovation at commercial scale with a financing pool of Rs1 lakh crore in line with the announcement in the interim budget.
Space Economy
With our continued emphasis on expanding the space economy by 5 times in the next 10 years, a venture capital fund of Rs1,000 crore will be set up.

Agencies