Union Budget 2025: Key takeaways from Nirmala Sitharaman's eighth consecutive budget

The final Budget session of the Parliament on February 1 began in shouts and a walkout by the opposition. In one of the shorter Budget presentations of recent times, Nirmala Sitharaman presented her eighth consecutive Union Budget on Saturday, tabling it after it was approved by the union cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day.

• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Union Budget 2025 in the Parliament, proposing the following tax slabs and rates:
  • Below Rs 4 lakh: Nil
  • Rs 4-5 lakh: 5 per cent
  • Rs 8-12 lakh: 10 per cent
  • Rs 12-16 lakh: 15 per cent
  • Rs 16-20 lakh: 20 per cent
  • Rs 20-24 lakh: 25 per cent
  • Above Rs 24 lakh:  30 per cent

• New income-tax bill to be introduced in the coming week; new bill to be direct in text with close to half of the present law.

• The Budget set the fiscal deficit for FY2025 at 4.8 per cent, and estimated the fiscal deficit for FY2026 at 4.4 per cent.

• The finance minister, in her Budget address, announced basic customs duty exemption in full for 36 live savings drugs and medicines.

• Sitharaman introduces "Investment as the third engine" angle: investing in people, investing in economy, and investing in innovation.

• Revamping the PM SVANidhi scheme for street vendors to enhance loans from banks and to provide UPI-linked credit cards with a Rs 30,000 limit.

• Social security scheme introduced for online platform workers. Registration in the e-Shram portal to be done and identity cards to be issued to service at least one crore workers under PM-JAY.

• Renewed push for public-private partnership in infrastructure projects. Outlay of Rs 1.5 lakh crore proposed for 50-year interest-free loan to states for capex and incentives for reforms in PPP infrastructure projects.

• Second asset monetisation plan from 2015 to 2030 to plough back Rs 10 lakh crore in new projects. Regulatory and fiscal measures to be fine-tuned to support the plan.

• Additional infrastructure to be set up in five IITs started after 2014 to add 6,500 more students; 10,000 additional seats to be added to medical colleges and hospitals in the upcoming year.

• New five-year Cotton Mission announced to streamline the productivity and increase the sustainability of cotton farming