Budget 2023 at a glance for UPSC aspirants: Big announcements

Budget 2023 has some big announcements that will be helpful for UPSC aspirants.

The Union Budget 2023 was presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament on February 1 where several key announcements were made. For those preparing for government exams such as UPSC and more the Budget has key details that they will need to learn as they sit for the examinations.

Here is a quick guide on Budget 2023 for UPSC exams:

Sitharaman outlined 7 priorities or 'Saptrishi' for the Budget. Here's what they are:

The government's Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas policy has benefitted many sections, including women, SCs, STs, OBCs, and other underprivileged groups.

Building on the huge success of Aspirational District program, we have recently launched the Aspirational Blocks program, covering 500 blocks for saturation of government services.

The capex outlay is being increased steeply by 33% to Rs 10 lakh crore, which would be 3.3% of the GDP.

A National Data Governance Policy will be brought up enabling access to anonimised data to unleash innovation and research by startups and academia.

The revamp schemes will take effect from 2023 through an infusion of Rs 9,000 crore in the corpus.

This budget provides for Rs 35,000 crore capital investment towards energy transition and net zero objective and energy security by the Ministry of petroleum and natural gas.

There will be a launch of the PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 to skill lakhs of youth. The scheme will cover new age courses.

Key takes for the agriculture sector for the Budget

- The Union Government’s focus on reforming the agriculture sector continues, after its legal reforms had to be repealed.

- The Budget envisages an open-source digital infrastructure for agriculture and an agriculture accelerator fund focused on youth in rural areas.

- These steps will help the nascent agri-tech industry and could help boost the sector which still employs nearly half of the country’s workforce.

Key takeaways on tax regime

- New tax regime a default regime; will have option to choose old regime

- No tax for income up to Rs 3 lakh/year

- Will cut personal income tax slabs to 5 From 6

- Tax Exemtion up to Rs 7 lakh/year is under new tax regime

- To remove minimum Threshold of Rs 10,000 on TDS

- Exempt tax on income of boards for housing, other activities

- Reduce highest surcharge rate to 25% from 37% in new tax regime

Cheaper and Expensive

Aero planes and other aircrafts; Gold (including gold plated with platinum) unwrought or in semi-manufactured forms, or in powder form; Base metals or silver, clad with gold, not further worked than semimanufactured; New or retreaded pneumatic tyres, of rubber, of a kind used on aircraft of heading; Platinum, unwrought or in semimanufactured form, or in powder form; Waste and scrap of precious metal or of metal clad with precious metal; several aquaculture inputs; Some TV, camera parts.

Vehicle (including electric vehicles); Silver Dore; Naphtha; styrene, Vinyl Chloride Monomer, Compounded Rubber, Articles of precious metals, Imitation Jewellery, Electric Kitchen Chimney, Bicycles, Toys and parts of toys (other than parts of electronic toys)

Budget announcements on digital initiatives focuses on artificial intelligence in the education sector

- Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence will be established in top educational institutions

- 100 laboratories in engineering institutions will be developing applications using 5G services

- A national digital library will be set up for children and adolescents for facilitating the availability of quality books across geographies, languages and genres

- Centre to recruit 38,800 teachers and support staff for 749 Eklavya Model Residential Schools that will service 3.5 lakh tribal students