Vaccines
- The Pneumococcal Vaccine, a Made in India product, is presently limited to only 5 states will be rolled out across the country. This will avert more than 50,000 child deaths annually.
- I have provided `35,000 crores for Covid-19 vaccine in BE 2021-22. I am committed to provide further funds if required.
- The Budget outlay for Health and Wellbeing is `2,23,846 crores in BE 2021-22 as against this year’s BE of `94,452 crores an increase of 137 percentage. The details of the same are at Annexure I of the Speech.
2. Physical and Financial Capital and Infrastructure AtmaNirbhar Bharat – Production Linked Incentive scheme (PLI)
- For a USD 5 trillion economy, our manufacturing sector has to grow in double digits on a sustained basis. Our manufacturing companies need to become an integral part of global supply chains, possess core competence and cutting-edge technology. To achieve all of the above, PLI schemes to create manufacturing global champions for an AtmaNirbhar Bharat have been announced for 13 sectors. For this, the government has committed nearly `1.97 lakh crores, over 5 years starting FY 2021-22. This initiative will help bring scale and size in key sectors, create and nurture global champions and provide jobs to our youth.
Textiles
- To enable the textile industry to become globally competitive, attract large investments and boost employment generation, a scheme of Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) will be launched in addition to the PLI scheme. This will create world class infrastructure with plug and play facilities to enable create global champions in exports. 7 Textile Parks will be established over 3 years.
Infrastructure
- The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) which I announced in December 2019 is the first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government exercise ever undertaken by Government of India. The NIP was launched with 6835 projects; the project pipeline has now expanded to 7,400 projects. Around
217 projects worth `1.10 lakh crores under some key infrastructure Ministries have been completed.
- The NIP is a specific target which this government is committed to achieving over the coming years. It will require a major increase in funding both from the government and the financial sector. In this Budget, I propose to take concrete steps to do this, in three ways:
- Firstly, by creating the institutional structures; secondly, by a big thrust on monetizing assets, and thirdly by enhancing the share of capital expenditure in central and state budgets.
Infrastructure financing – Development Financial Institution (DFI)
- Infrastructure needs long term debt financing. A professionally managed Development Financial Institution is necessary to act as a provider, enabler and catalyst for infrastructure financing. Accordingly, I shall introduce a Bill to set up a DFI. I have provided a sum of `20,000 crores to capitalise this institution. The ambition is to have a lending portfolio of at least `5 lakh crores for this DFI in three years time.
- Debt Financing of InVITs and REITs by Foreign Portfolio Investors will be enabled by making suitable amendments in the relevant legislations. This will further ease access of finance to InVITS and REITs thus augmenting funds for infrastructure and real estate sectors.
Asset Monetisation
- Monetizing operating public infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new infrastructure construction. A “National Monetization Pipeline” of potential brownfield infrastructure assets will be launched. An Asset Monetization dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors. Some important measures in the direction of monetisation are:
- National Highways Authority of India and PGCIL each have sponsored one InvIT that will attract international and domestic institutional investors. Five operational roads with an estimated enterprise value of ` 5,000 crores are being transferred to the NHAI InvIT. Similarily, transmission assets of a value of `7,000 crores will be transferred to the PGCIL InvIT.
- Railways will monetise Dedicated Freight Corridor assets for operations and maintenance, after commissioning.
- The next lot of Airports will be monetised for operations and management concession.
- Other core infrastructure assets that will be rolled out under the Asset Monetization Programme are: (i) NHAI Operational Toll Roads
(ii) Transmission Assets of PGCIL (iii) Oil and Gas Pipelines of GAIL, IOCL and HPCL (iv) AAI Airports in Tier II and III cities, (v) Other Railway Infrastructure Assets (vi) Warehousing Assets of CPSEs such as Central Warehousing Corporation and NAFED among others and
(vii) Sports Stadiums.
Sharp Increase in Capital Budget
- In the BE 2020-21, we had provided `4.12 lakh crores for Capital Expenditure. It was our effort that in spite of resource crunch we should spend more on capital and we are likely to end the year at around `4.39
lakh crores which I have provided in the RE 2020-21. For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided `5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21. Of this, I have kept a sum of more than `44,000 crores in the Budget head of the Department of Economic Affairs to be provided for projects/programmes/departments that show good progress on Capital Expenditure and are in need of further funds. Over and above this expenditure, we would also be providing more than `2 lakh crores to States and Autonomous Bodies for their Capital Expenditure.
- We will also work out specific mechanisms to nudge States to spend more of their budget on creation of infrastructure.
Roads and Highways Infrastructure
- More than 13,000 km length of roads, at a cost of `3.3 lakh crores, has already been awarded under the `5.35 lakh crores Bharatmala Pariyojana project of which 3,800 kms have been constructed. By March 2022, we would be awarding another 8,500 kms and complete an additional 11,000 kms of national highway corridors.
- To further augment road infrastructure, more economic corridors are also being planned. Some are:
- 3,500 km of National Highway works in the state of Tamil Nadu at an investment of `1.03 lakh crores. These include Madurai-Kollam corridor, Chittoor-Thatchur corridor. Construction will start next year.
- 1,100 km of National Highway works in the State of Kerala at an investment of `65,000 crores including 600 km section of Mumbai- Kanyakumari corridor in Kerala.
- 675 km of highway works in the state of West Bengal at a cost of
`25,000 crores including upgradation of existing road-Kolkata – Siliguri.
- National Highway works of around `19,000 crores are currently in progress in the State of Assam. Further works of more than `34,000
crores covering more than 1300 kms of National Highways will be undertaken in the State in the coming three years.
- Some of the flagship corridors and other important projects that would see considerable activity in 2021-22 are in Annexure-II.
- I am also providing an enhanced outlay of `1,18,101 lakh crores for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, of which `1,08,230 crores is for capital, the highest ever.
Railway Infrastructure
- 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 following additional initiatives are proposed:
- The Sonnagar – Gomoh Section (263.7 km) of Eastern DFC will be taken up in PPP mode in 2021-22. Gomoh-Dankuni section of 274.3 km will also be taken up in short succession.
- We will undertake future dedicated freight corridor projects namely East Coast corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada. Detailed Project Reports will be undertaken in the first phase.
- Broad Gauge Route Kilometers (RKM) electrified is expected to reach 46,000 RKM i.e., 72% by end of 2021 from 41,548 RKM on 1st Oct 2020. 100% electrification of Broad-Gauge routes will be completed by December, 2023.
- For Passenger convenience and safety the following measures are proposed:
- We will introduce the aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes to give a better travel experience to passengers.
- The safety measures undertaken in the past few years have borne results. To further strengthen this effort, high density network and highly utilized network routes of Indian railways will be provided with an indigenously developed automatic train protection system that eliminates train collision due to human error.
- I am providing a record sum of `1,10,055 crores, for Railways of which `1,07,100 crores is for capital expenditure.