By Chandrajit Banerjee
The FM has unravelled a most consequential and pathbreaking Budget, which rightly catalyses development with social inclusion and has struck a delicate balance among lives and livelihood, development and fiscal prudence.
A substantial push to public investment, on each physical and social infrastructure, has been the leitmotif. The NIP—launched with 6,835 projects—has now expanded to 7,400 projects with a capital allocation of Rs 5.54 lakh crore in FY22(BE) against Rs 4.39 lakh crore in FY21 (RE). This will support speed up infrastructure improvement, make demand and shore up development, and make considerably-necessary jobs.
Another stand-out function is the greater allocation to healthcare, especially for Covid-19 vaccine. The pandemic has brought to the fore the fragile nature of public wellness infrastructure. The govt has also addressed the pertinent challenge of infrastructure financing. DFI is a welcome move for strengthening the financing portfolio for infrastructure and would support in channelise investments. Further, the “National Monetization Pipeline” of prospective brownfield infrastructure assets is proposed to be launched. The monetising of current assets by means of this channel will support produce more sources which could be ploughed back into infrastructure.
Cognisant of the monetary sector’s function, the government has announced a plethora of measures pertaining to banking, insurance coverage, and the bond industry. The setting up of a poor bank, in the kind of asset reconstruction & management firm, will support banks recycle their poor loans. Similarly, the enhance in FDI in the insurance coverage sector from 49% to 74%, bringing down the government stake in two PSBs, enabling debt financing of InVITs and REITs by FPIs, et al, are all moves in the proper path. The Budget has retained an agrarian and rural pivot. A extensive set of measures to cut down the provide-side bottlenecks in delivery and distribution have been announced. The Budget FY22 focusses on building an effective agriculture promoting ecosystem, bridging the infrastructure gaps, decreasing wastages across the provide chain, enhancing domestic competitiveness, building higher-worth segments and nutrition.
Coming to specifics, the planned investment in agri-infra, by enhancing the allocation to the rural infra improvement fund and micro-irrigation fund is substantial. Similarly, the Budget has rightly enhanced the target for credit to agriculture to Rs 16.5 lakh crore in FY22. And the extension of e-Nam to 1,000 more a would also support in value discovery for farmers. Another essential function is a gradual shift towards green and sustainable development—Rs 2,217 crore has been allocated for 42 urban centres with a million-plus population to address air pollution problems. The expansion of metro network and augmenting public transport would support decongest roads, increase urban mobility and market decongestion and pollution.
The provision of water provide to urban households by means of the JJM (urban) in all 4,378 Urban Local Bodies with 2.86 crore household tap connections, as properly as liquid waste management in 500 AMRUT cities more than 5 years, is noteworthy. To bring this programme below the essential element of infrastructure and accordingly awarding water provide and sewage work contracts would increase the living situations.
The author is Director General, CII