Key takeaways from the Budget: Transformative areas, growth engines, tax benefits, light touch regulations

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman wrapped the Union Budget 2025 speech in under 1:20 hours while touching upon key areas including growth, transformation, regulations, capex, and tax rationalisation.

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Here are the 1o key takeaways from the Union Budget 2025.

Transformative reforms in six key areas: taxation, power sector, urban development, mining, financial sector, regulatory reforms.

Four key areas of growth: agriculture, MSMEs, investment, exports.

Speedy approvals for company mergers and scope of such norms to be expanded.

Government will develop modern, people-friendly, trust-based, light-touch regulatory framework.

Fiscal deficit for FY25 at 4.8% of GDP (Budget estimates pegged it at 4.9% last year). Budget estimates for FY26 pegs fiscal deficit at 4.4% of GDP.

Financial markets: FDI limit for insurance sector to be raised from 75 to 100 percent for companies that will invest the entire premium in India.

Tax measures: Indirect tax measures to support domestic manufacturing and value addition. Basic exemption limit hiked from Rs 7 lakh to Rs 12 lakh for individual tax payers; tax slab rates rationalised.

Capex: Infrastructure ministries will come up with 3 year pipeline for PPP projects. Each infrastructure ministry to come up with 3 PPP proposals, Rs 1.5 lakh crore interest free loans for capex and incentives for reforms.

Power: Incentivise power distribution reforms and augmentation of intra state transmission. Nuclear energy mission for Viksit Bharat: 100 GW of nuclear energy by 2047

Shipbuilding: Shipbuilding clusters will be facilitated, to increase capacity and range. To develop the entire ecosystem