An overview of Union Budget 2020-21

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her second Union Budget on 1 February 2020 in Parliament.The total expenditure has been pegged at Rs 30.42 lakh crore in the Union Budget for 2020-21 and the capital expenditure of the government is pegged to increase by 21.7 percent.The Union Budget has allocated Rs 2.83 lakh crore for agriculture and allied activities, irrigation and rural development. Of this, Agriculture, Irrigation & Allied activities will get Rs 1.60 lakh crore and for Rural development & Panchayati Raj, Rs 1.23 lakh crore.

The Budget has provided Rs 69,000 crore for health, Rs 99,300 crore for education and Rs 3,000 for skill development. Further, the Rs 3.6 lakh crore Jal Jeevan mission has been allocated Rs 11,500 crore in the budget.  

The Finance Minister allocated Rs 27,300 crore for development and promotion of Industry and Commerce. To give boost to technical textiles, a National Technical Textiles Mission is proposed with a four-year implementation period from 2020-21 to 2023-24 at an outlay of Rs 1,480 crore.

An amount to the tune of Rs 1.70 lakh crore has been set aside for development of the transport sector. In the Railways, it aims electrification of 27,000 km of tracks.

A budgetary allocation of Rs 22,000 crore has been fixed for the Power and Renewable Energy sector in 2020-21, while Rs 3,150 crore for the Ministry of Culture.