NEW DELHI: Steps to boost jobs by expanding the Production Linked Incentive scheme to furniture, toys, footwear and more segments of textiles, along with a focus on MSMEs, while increasing income levels of women and boosting infrastructure, are expected to be among the key thrust areas of the Modi govt’s first Budget in its third term with several of the issues also being part of govt’s 100-day agenda that will feed into the targets for 2030.
Besides, the finance ministry is looking at sops for the middle class, which may not necessarily be limited to options around tax concessions but may extend to interest rate subsidies for housing loans and other measures.
These are preliminary areas of emphasis, some flowing from the election outcome, with detailed consultations yet to begin.
Detailed consultations are yet to begin given that ministers took charge last week and PM Narendra Modi was travelling, sources familiar with the deliberations told TOI.
The pre-Budget consultations are to begin this week, but a lot of groundwork has already been done by officials, who were tasked by Modi to prepare the 100-day plan. Between Wednesday and June 25, FM Nirmala Sitharaman is slated to meet economists, farm sector exports, market participants, bankers and labour unions, among others.
Besides, on Saturday, she will meet state finance ministers to seek their inputs on the Budget, before joining them for the GST Council meeting in the afternoon.
While the proposal for expanding PLI to more sectors has been on the table for a while, including to speciality chemicals where European companies are retreating, there have been issues around the size of investment that should be promoted by govt as large global champions are sought to be created in India.
The details of the MSME package are yet to be firmed up but the idea is to empower small businesses, which were a focus of the post-Covid scheme too, so that there is enough impetus to create employment in the largest sector after agriculture.
Jobs, both in terms of quantity and quality, have been a key concern during the polls and many see BJP falling short of the majority mark as a fallout of the widespread discontent on this count. There have been multiple suggestions to increase income levels for women, and increase their participation in the workforce, including through some tax arrangements. Officials said the proposals will be discussed in detail as women are a key target group for NDA.
