Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speaks during a post-budget press conference, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The government will focus on economic growth and job creation and cut down the fiscal deficit, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday, presenting its last full budget in Parliament before the 2024 election.

Here are the charts that show major aspects of Union Budget 2023:

Budget at a glance

The Narendra Modi government focused on a slew of measures that expanded Capital Expenditure spending and tied in various priorities including Green Growth, Youth Power, and Inclusive Development.

Fiscal deficit would be brought down to below 4.5% by 2025-26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. She also said that tax receipts for the next fiscal are budgeted at ₹23.3 lakh crore and States would be allowed 3.5% of GDP as fiscal deficit.

What funds the deficit

The government plans to borrow a record ₹15.4 lakh crore from dated securities in FY24 to meet its expenditure requirement to prop up the economy. This is higher than the total borrowing of ₹14.21 lakh crore for the current financial year ending March 31, 2023.

Rupee come from

Borrowings and other liabilities account for the largest avenue from where the Budget money comes.

Rupee goes to

With 20% of its budget going into interest payments, the State’s share of taxes and duties and the Central sector scheme assume two major areas of spending for the government.

State-wise allocation of central taxes and duties

Here is the state-wise distribution of net proceeds of Union Taxes and Duties for Budget Estimates 2023-24. The distribution was conducted according to the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission which fixed the share of states at 41% of the net proceeds of sharable Central Taxes and Income Tax.

Transfer to states/UTs

Allocation to Ministries

The Union Budget allocated a massive ₹5.94 lakh crore for the Defence Ministry, a 13% increase year-on-year from last year’s budget estimates.

Outlay for Major Schemes

The Union Budget 2023-24 document listed the new allocations for core welfare schemes that drive socio-economic development.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a number of measures for the agriculture sector, including an increase in the credit target to ₹20 lakh crore, with focus on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries.

% change for major schemes

Here’s a roundup of how the budgetary allocations for some of the key schemes have changed. While the MGNREGS budget saw a 32% decrease from the revised estimates of 2022-23, the outlay for PM-Kisan remained the same.

Railway Budget in a Glance

With an outlay of ₹2.40 lakh crore for the financial year 2023-24 compared to ₹1.40 lakh crore in the FY22-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the outlay for the railways is nine times the amount provided in 2013-2014.

Cheaper vs Dearer

With an eye on promoting exports, boosting domestic manufacturing and enhancing value addition, Union Budget 2023-24 has proposed number of changes to Customs Duty regime that is likely to make mobile phones and televisions cheaper and certain class of automobiles, including EVs, as well as toys and bicycles dearer.

File photo of officials collecting data as part of Census in 2011.
| Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K

In an indication that the census exercise — meant to be completed in 2021, but delayed because of COVID-19 — may not be conducted in 2023-24, the Union Budget allocation for the Census Survey and Statistics head has been slashed to ₹1,565 crore from the ₹3,676 crore allocated in 2022-23. The last census was held in 2011.

Overall, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been allocated ₹1.96 lakh crore in the Budget 2023-24, a 5% hike from the almost ₹1.86 lakh crore allotted to it in the current fiscal.

In her Budget speech on Wednesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that States must spend the entire fifty-year loan given to them on capital expenditure within the 2023-24 financial year. Parts of the outlay will also be linked to, or allocated for scrapping old government vehicles and housing for police personnel above or as part of police stations, she said.

Intelligence database funding up

The allocation for the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) has been more than doubled, growing a whopping 128% from ₹87.77 crore in 2022-23 to ₹200.53 crore in the coming year. NATGRID is one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access databases related to immigration entry and exit, and the banking and telephone details of terror and crime suspects, using a “secured platform”. The Intelligence Bureau has seen an increase of 7% with an allocation of ₹3,418 crore in 2023-24.

The Official Languages division that promotes the use of Hindi language in official government work has been allocated a budget of ₹93.26 crore.

The Special Protection Group, which only provides security cover to the Prime Minister of India, has seen a 12% increase in budgetary allocation from ₹385 crore to ₹433 crore.

The Indo Tibetan Border Police Force that is deployed along the 3,488 km border with China has seen an 8% increase in its budget from ₹7,461 crore in the current fiscal to ₹8,097 crore in the next fiscal.

Managing border infra, movement

The budget for the Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration and Tracking System (IVFRT) has increased 30% from ₹175 crore to ₹229 crore. IVFRT’s core objective is to develop and implement a secure and integrated service delivery framework that facilitates legitimate travellers, while strengthening security.

Border infrastructure and management has seen its budget grow 29%, from ₹2,744 crore in 2022-23 to ₹3,545 crore in 2023-24. The provision is allocated for barbed wire fencing, construction of roads, observation posts and border outposts, installation of flood lights, induction of hi-tech surveillance along the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders, and for other such construction activities at India’s international borders

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre has been allocated ₹94 crore, almost 60% more than the ₹59 crore allocated the previous year

A large component of the budget, a total of ₹2,092 crore, has been reserved for “research,” which is almost 50% higher than the ₹1,400 crore revised estimates for 2021-22.

The modernisation of the Central Armed Police Forces, newly introduced as a budget head in 2022-23, has seen its allocation fall more than 18% to ₹202 crore, down from the ₹248 crore allotted earlier.

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