Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman, presented the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament today (July 23). 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).
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 5 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 ₹2 lakh crore. This year, ₹1.48 lakh crore has been allocated for education, employment and skilling.
As part of the Prime Minister’s package, 3 schemes for ‘Employment Linked Incentive’ to be implemented – Scheme A – First Timers; Scheme B – Job Creation in manufacturing; Scheme C – Support to employers.
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
₹7.5 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 ₹10 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.
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.
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 ₹1 lakh crore in line with the announcement in the interim budget.
The Government will launch a comprehensive scheme for providing internship opportunities in top companies. This will be the 5th scheme under the Prime Minister’s package.
While presenting the Union Budget 2024-25, the Union Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the scheme will provide internship opportunities in 500 top companies to 1 crore youth in 5 years. They will gain exposure for 12 months to real-life business environment, varied professions and employment opportunities, she said.
To facilitate higher participation of women in the workforce, the Budget has proposed working women hostels and crèches to be established with industrial collaboration, women-specific skilling programmes to be organized and market access for women SHG enterprises to be promoted.
In his budget reaction, Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan wrote on social media platform X: “Prioritising education, skilling, employment generation, research and innovation like never before, #BudgetForViksitBharat paves the way for strengthening Bharat’s credentials as the talent basket, skill hub and solution provider for the world. This budget will further facilitate ease-of-living, boost socio-economic conditions, fuel green growth, strengthen social justice, improve business climate, realise dreams, bring prosperity in every home and accelerate the groundwork to achieve the next phase of economic growth.”
“Budget 2024-25 will boost StartUps and the StartUp ecosystem through bold and innovative proposals like ending “Angel Tax” and introducing paid Internship,” said the Union Minister for Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh on the budget.
Expert, Academica & Industry leadership Reactions
