Sitharaman cuts it short this year, Budget speech around 1 hour, 50 min
Feb 01, 2021
New Delhi [India], February 1 : Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget 2021-22 that lasted around one hour and 50 minutes.
This was a shorter speech compared to the last two years where Sitharaman spoke for over two hours. In 2020, she was not able to complete her speech after speaking for a record 160 minutes in the Lok Sabha.
During her third budget speech in Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said that the government is committed to the welfare of farmers and the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime has undergone a change.
Sitharaman said: "The MSP regime has undergone a change to assure price that is at least 1.5 times the cost of production across all commodities. The procurement has also continued to increase at a steady pace, this has resulted in an increase in payment of farmers, substantially."
The Finance Minister also said that there is a substantial increase in investment in Health Infrastructure and the Budget outlay for Health and Wellbeing is Rs 2,23,846 crore in Budget Estimates (BE) 2021-22 as against this year's BE of Rs 94,452 crore, an increase of 137 per cent.
In the Budget 2020-21, Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan for India - 2030. The Plan is to create a 'future ready' Railway system by 2030. Bringing down the logistic costs for our industry is at the core of our strategy to enable 'Make in India'. It is expected that Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern DFC will be commissioned by June 2022.
The central government is allocating Rs 1,41,678 crores for Swachh Bharat 2.0. Sitharaman also announced an outlay of Rs 2,217 crores for 42 urban centers with a million-plus population, to tackle the burgeoning problem of air pollution.
The Finance Minister today announced an allocation of Rs 4,78,195.62 crore for the defence sector for 2021-22 as against last year's Rs 4,71,378 crore (including Defence Pension). Excluding pensions, it is pegged at Rs 3.62 lakh crore from last year's Rs 3.37 lakh crore.
The Budget proposals for 2021-22 on Monday put Rs 1.75 lakh crore as a target from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions.
