Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2022 in Parliament. These are the top announcements made by her in the Budget speech-

1) Drone Shakti- Startups will be encouraged to promote Drone Shakti to make drone a service. In selected ITIs in all states, courses will be started.

2) Digital Education- States will be asked to revise the syllabus of agricultural universities to meet the needs of natural, zero-budget & organic farming, modern-day agriculture. One class, one TV channel program of PM eVIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels. This will allow all states to give supplementary education in local languages to classes 1 to 12th.

3) E-Passport- The allocation of E-passports using embedded ships and futuristic technology will be launched by the year 2022-23 to improve the convenience for the citizens.

4) PM Awas Yojana- In the year 2022-23, 80 lakh houses will be completed for identified beneficiaries of PM Awas Yojana and 60,000 houses will be identified as beneficiaries for PM Awas Yojana in rural & urban areas. Rs 60,000 Crores will be allocated for providing tap water to 3.8 crore households.

5) 5G Spectrum- 5G spectrum auctions will be carried out to launch the services in FY 22-23

6) Defence Sector- Defense R&D will be expanded for the industry, startups and academia with 25 per cent of the defence R&D budget. The private sector will be motivated to take up the design and development of military platforms and equipment in partnership with DRDO and other organisations through the SPV model. Sixty-eight per cent of the capital procurement budget in defence will be for the domestic industry in 2022-23.

7) Digital Rupee- FM announces central bank digital currency, which will be a digital rupee using blockchain and other technology. It will be introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the year 2022-23.

8) Taxpayers- Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new tax rule for taxpayers. A taxpayer can file an updated return on payment of taxes within two years from the end of the applicable assessment year. This is a new provision that will ensure voluntary tax filing and decrease litigation.

9) Tax on Digital Assets- FM announces 30 per cent tax on profits of digital assets. “I propose to provide that any income from transfer of any digital asset will be taxed at the rate of 30 per cent. No deduction in respect of any expenditure or allowance will be allowed while computing such income, except the cost of acquisition.”