New Delhi: Delivering the annual budget for the fifth consecutive time, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced an increase in the income tax rebate limit from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh under the new tax regime and also reduced the number of tax slabs in the new tax regime.
Reacting to this year's annual budget, noted economist and Dean Indian Institute of Foreign Trade Prof Rakesh Mohan Joshi said, "This year's budget has focussed a lot on infrastructural development which is the backbone of the country's growth and I would rate it 8/10 given the major push on infrastructural growth and the focus on digital public infrastructure for agriculture."
To a question on the Income tax rebate limit which has been increased from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh under the new tax regime and whether it would benefit the middle class, Joshi said: "Whenever the budget is announced, there are a lot of expectations from the middle class but it is also a fact that the middle class is always depressed as no government could benefit this section to a large extent and this latest rebate limit would only benefit the middle class marginally."
Delivering this year's budget, the Union Finance Minister in her address promised a national digital library for children and adolescents to facilitate the availability of quality books, the establishment of 157 new nursing colleges in core locations, to skill the youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India International Centres will be set up across different States and others.
To this, Joshi said the government should be praised for its focus on infrastructural development, research, and development. He, however, expressed his concerns in the domain of education, especially higher education.
"While a lot has been said about the need for the push for educational development, in today's budget, I found that there was less focus on education except for the Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS). And, one more aspect which did not receive much attention was the focus on Higher Education. Now at a time when we are coming up with the idea of foreign universities getting established here in our country, we need to strengthen our public educational setups in view of a fairer competition between the two."
It is pertinent to note here that the Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) have had their budget increase by a significant Rs 581.96 crore, from Rs 1418.04 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 2,000 crores for the 2022-23 financial year as per which the FM said that in the next 3 years, the centre will recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for the 740 Ekalavya schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.
At a time when the country is facing security threats from its neighbours, a lot was expected from the government in the defence sector but the Finance Minister's speech did not mention anything on defence-related matters. To it, Joshi said: "A lot of focus has been on Infra development, road connectivity and others and therefore there was no need to specifically mention details on the defence-related matters but I would also have to read the whole document first before saying anything on this critical aspect."
