Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman presented the Union Budget 2022 on February 1. This year’s budget was Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fourth successive budget.
In her speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Union Budget sought to lay the foundation and give a blueprint of the economy over ‘Amrit Kal’ of the next 25 years – from India at 75 to India at 100.
The Union Budget 2022-23 emphasises the MSME sector, a critical sector that makes up for about 45% of the country’s total manufacturing output, 40 per cent of exports, almost 30 per cent of the national GDP.
The Finance Minister has announced that the Emergency Credit Line has been extended till March 2023 for the MSME sector. The guarantee cover has been extended by another Rs. 50,000 crores taking the total cover under the scheme to Rs. 5,00,000 crores. Finance Minister Sitharaman said that the union government intends to focus on the hospitality sector.
In her speech, the Finance Minister said that the government has decided to roll out Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance (RAMP), an initiative to revitalise the MSME sector that has been heavily impacted by the COVID -19 pandemic.
The MSME sector also got a boost for skilling and enhancing entrepreneurship, said Finance Minister, adding that the government intends to focus more on formalisation.
The Finance Minister announced that MSME’s Udyam, e-Shram, NCS and Aseem portals would be interlinked, and their scope widened.
The Modi government tabled Economic Survey 2021-22 in the Parliament earlier on Monday. It is projected that the economy is expected to grow at 8.0-8.5 per cent in 2022-23.