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Upcoming Budget 2022-2023

The constitution of India states the union budget as ‘‘the statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government for that

By aakriti verma 31 Jan 2022

New Update

The constitution of India states the union budget as ‘‘the statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government for that particular year” in Article 112. The budget has been further classified into Revenue as well as the Capital budget. The Revenue Budget deals with the day-to-day expenditure of the government while the Capital Budget includes the expenditure on development in multiple sectors.

This year's Union Budget will be presented by the Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2022. The main focus in Budget 2021 revolved around the health sector and rural infrastructure development. It can be expected that this year there will be some important announcements to enhance the nation’s economy and empower citizens. However, new health care concerns have been raised by the Omicron variant as well as the IHU variant of the Covid-19 Pandemic, as they could be an obstacle amid the economic recovery of the nation.

Looking after the welfare of the common man in mind, new strategies may be announced for their benefit. Last year, the budget was primarily focused on health and infrastructure. In the upcoming budget, new policies could be announced to boost economic recovery, foster entrepreneurship, and ease the burden on taxpayers. The decisions could be made for the next financial year to what extent exemption will be given to the taxpayers, however, no such relief was mentioned in the last budget.

For this year as well, it could be predicted that a huge budget would be allocated to the education sector as well as the country's infrastructure. Through infrastructure, the main aim is to improve roads, railways, houses, hospitals to make the life of citizens convenient. During the last budget, important announcements were made in the education sector such as scholarship schemes for scheduled castes and residential schools in tribal areas.

Announcements could be made further on improving the digital infrastructure, technology as well as cyber security. In this digital era, online risks and threats cannot be avoided and it is important to focus on them.

According to a Pre-Budget round table organized by fortune India, Mr. Jayant Sinha, former minister of state for finance and civil aviation, stated that India is heading towards an excellent year for the economy. The focus could be laid on three things which are to strengthen public health infrastructure, to support the vulnerable population and the third is National Investment Pipeline (NIP) would be able to provide debt financing for public investment.

Rajeev Gowda, chairman of, Research Department stated that focus needs to be laid more on The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and other social safety assurance measures. Instead of a V-shaped growth, K shape growth is being observed more as many sectors flourished in the pandemic meanwhile other sectors were severely affected. The government needs to spend more in other sectors along with infrastructure.

Subhash Chandra Garg, Former Finance Secretary stated that the government is going to emphasize more on capital expenditure. In the redistribution, further emphasis is needed to be laid to make life better and provide resources to the poor. There may not be more focus on the reforms as the privatization agenda has not moved much, due to the farmers’ bill. Akhil Gupta, vice chairman, Bharti enterprises, the fiscal deficit was extremely high last year, so this year, the nation needs to stand strongly behind the finance minister and encourage her to not compromise on capital expenditure.

The government further needs to provide guarantees to financial institutions for the private sectors, instead of lending or putting their own money into the project until it is a success. Tax Rationalization also needs to be done as there should be no room for tax concessions. Divestment of PSUs needs to be achieved and a strategic plan must be presented for over 20 PSUs.

To conclude, It is highly advised that instead of promising and inauguration about the new projects and targets, the government should take a proactive approach as the government would be better poised to meet the deadlines of previous proposals and budgets that haven’t still been met before adding more projects on their plate.

Special Note: I would further like to express my gratitude to Mr Dibakar De and Ms Shriya Giriraj for helping me with this project.

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Author: aakriti verma