Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman presented the Union Budget 2022 on February 1. This year’s budget was Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fourth successive budget.
In her speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Union Budget sought to lay the foundation and give a blueprint of the economy over ‘Amrit Kal’ of the next 25 years – from India at 75 to India at 100.
The Union Budget 2022-23 emphasises the MSME sector, a critical sector that makes up for about 45% of the country’s total manufacturing output, 40 per cent of exports, almost 30 per cent of the national GDP.
The Finance Minister has announced that the Emergency Credit Line has been extended till March 2023 for the MSME sector. The guarantee cover has been extended by another Rs. 50,000 crores taking the total cover under the scheme to Rs. 5,00,000 crores. Finance Minister Sitharaman said that the union government intends to focus on the hospitality sector.
In her speech, the Finance Minister said that the government has decided to roll out Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance (RAMP), an initiative to revitalise the MSME sector that has been heavily impacted by the COVID -19 pandemic.
The MSME sector also got a boost for skilling and enhancing entrepreneurship, said Finance Minister, adding that the government intends to focus more on formalisation.
The Finance Minister announced that MSME’s Udyam, e-Shram, NCS and Aseem portals would be interlinked, and their scope widened.
The Modi government tabled Economic Survey 2021-22 in the Parliament earlier on Monday. It is projected that the economy is expected to grow at 8.0-8.5 per cent in 2022-23.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a National Mental Health Programme in her budget speech on Tuesday.
The Finance Minister said that the government intends to set up a National Tele-Mental Health Programme in India. She said that 23 tele-mental health centres would be launched with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) as the nodal centre.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accentuated mental health problems in people of all ages, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today while presenting the Union Budget 2022-23.
“To better the access to quality mental health counselling and care services, a National Tele Mental Health program will be launched,” she said.
The Finance Minister added that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Bangalore will provide technological support for the mental health programme.
In her budget speech today, FM expressed her empathy for those who had to bear adverse health and economic effects of the pandemic.
In the budget speech, the minister also stated that government would roll out an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem. “It will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity and universal access to health facilities,” the minister added.
The Finance Minister said the country is expected to grow at 9.2 per cent in the current financial year.
On February 1, during budget 2022-23 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government would set up a task force to promote AVGC (animation, visual effects, gaming, and comics) section.
FM said, “Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector offers immense potential to employ youth. An AVGC promotion task force with all stakeholders will be set up to recommend ways to realise this and build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand.”
Considering the growing demand in the AVGC sector, the government of India as well as state governments took several steps in the past as well. In 2019, FM Sitharaman had opened FDI in the sector. Recently. Karnataka government had launched the AVGC Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. Karnataka was the first state to announce the AVGC policy in India in 2012.