Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her third budget under the NDA government on February 1, at 11 am. This year's budget is significant as it comes at a time when India's economy is battling a slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a first, Budget 2021 will go paperless and will be accessed via the Budget mobile app. Budget documents will be available in Hindi and English on Budget day for members of parliament (MPs), media, public and other key stakeholders. The app can be downloaded from the Union Budget website.
The budget is expected to be expansionary with the higher than trend expenditure allocations for infrastructure, healthcare and Make-in-India measures. There would also be an additional head of expenditure in this budget – the Covid-19 vaccination program.
The government is expected to incur costs to the tune of ₹12,000 crore towards vaccinating citizens. On the funding front, privatisation, asset monetisation policy would also remain under the radar to partly offset a Covid-induced shortfall in tax revenues thereby containing deficit.
New Initiatives that can be announced keeping in mind future growth could be;
1. the setting up of a development financial institution for infrastructure development with an initial equity infusion from the government;
2. setting up of a bad bank for taking over stressed assets from the books of banks, freeing capital for them to undertake fresh lending;
3. setting up of a financial institution for taking over stalled projects.