Union Budget 2021 Live Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman To Present Budget In Parliament Today

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the budget for the financial year 2021-22 today. The speech is expected to begin at 11 am in Parliament’s Lok Sabha. The Union Budget 2021 is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving the economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours.

As India emerges from the Covid-19 crisis, the ninth budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, will be focusing on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.

In 2019, Sitharaman had replaced leather briefcase that had been for decades used for carrying budget documents with a traditional red cloth 'bahi-khata', had earlier this month stated that the budget for the fiscal year beginning April will be "like never before".

The government announced a number of policy measures under Aatmanirbhar Bharat package 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 to support the economy. The package was a combination of grant, equity and liquidity measures by the central government, state governments and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). While the headline stimulus was pegged at close to Rs 21 lakh crore, the actual fiscal impact of the economic packages works out to be about Rs 3.5 lakh crore (1.8 per cent of GDP).

Among the most-watched figures in the budget would be the expenditure on vaccination in FY22 which could be shared among the central government, state governments and households.

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Also, to be watched is the revenue that the government is projecting to receive from the privatisation of companies such as Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), Air India and Shipping Corporation of India (SCI).

Market borrowings are expected to remain elevated and external deficit financing would increase.

Higher capital expenditure outlay for National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) programme that has an aggregate investment target of Rs 111 lakh crore over the period 2020-25 and making recently introduced Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme more attractive to lure foreign manufacturers to boost domestic manufacturing are top expectations from the budget.

10:14 am: Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan arrive at the Parliament. 

10:10 am: Finance Minister reaches Parliament. She will begin her Budget speech at 11 AM.

10:07 am: Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS Finance & Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, meet President Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan before presenting the Union Budget 2021-22.

10:01 am: Where can you watch Budget 2021?

 9:36 am: First part of budget session to end on February 13.

9:24 am: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present and read out the Budget 2021-22 at the Parliament through a tab, instead of the traditional ‘bahi khata’.

9:20 am: Ahead of the presentation of Budget, Sensex up by 401.77 points, currently at 46,687.54.

9:19 am: FM Nirmala Sitharaman and MoS Finance Anurag Thakur leave from the Ministry of Finance. For the first time ever, the Budget will be paperless this year due to COVID. It will be available for all as a soft copy, online.

9:15 am: Sitharaman to meet President Kovind shortly.

9:00 am: After an estimated 7.7 per cent contraction in 2020-21, the Finance Ministry’s Economic Survey projects that India’s real GDP would record a growth of 11 per cent in 2021-22. The nominal GDP growth has been estimated at 15.4 per cent, implying an assumption of 4.4 per cent inflation during the year. 

8:47am: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrives at the Ministry of Finance