The Vote-on-account Union Budget of 2024 was true to its name. In the budget speech delivered by our Honourable Finance Minister – Nirmala Sitharaman, the main takeaway was that we should look forward to the actual Union Budget that will be presented if the BJP party wins the General Elections slated in July 2024.
In case you missed it, here is what we mean by Vote-on-Account Budget.
But, that doesn’t mean, this budget announcement had no relevant updates. It did have some good news for certain industries. Entrepreneurs especially have a lot to celebrate.
Let’s give you the 3 most important takeaways from the budget speech and how it can help business owners:
Funds for entrepreneurship
The Modi Government announced an impressive scheme to help realise the entrepreneurial aspirations of the youth of India, and the underrepresented sections like rural women.
The scheme titled “Mudra Yojana” will sanction 43 crore loans amounting to INR 22.5 Lakh Cr. In the last 10 years, nearly 70% of these loans have been given to women entrepreneurs.
Related read: 7 Best Government schemes for women entrepreneurs in India
“We also appreciate the government’s efforts to promote entrepreneurship through schemes like the Mudra Yojana, with ₹30 crore disbursed to women entrepreneurs and ₹43 crore sanctioned under PM Mudra Yojana to foster youth entrepreneurship. These initiatives are aligned with our mission at Instamojo to support and empower small businesses and entrepreneurs across India.” – Sampad Swain, CEO at Instamojo
Tax benefits for startups
Although this Union Budget speech was the shortest speech to date by Nirmala Sitharaman (and we have had some interesting budget speeches in the past – get the trivia here.
This budget had some really good news for startups.
- Certain tax benefits were scheduled to expire on March 31 for startups who were part of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). These benefits have now been extended by a year. This will provide stability and support to these businesses.
- The Government also announced a corpus of INR 1 lakh crore for loans at low and or NIL interest rates to encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation in sunrise sectors.
(Sunrise sectors are those sectors of industry that are in their infancy stage but are showing great promise of a rapid boom. Some examples might be: Space tourism, green energy etc)
Improvement in the logistics sector
The finance minister also proposed updates to the existing Gati Shakti programme, which enables multi-modal connectivity. Read more about it here.
She has proposed building three more railway corridors to improve logistic efficiency and reduce costs in the country. This will aim to reduce congestion and help improve freight movement across the countries.
eCommerce platforms specially will gain from this considering faster delivery rates are the backbone of the D2C eCommerce industry.
Related read: 6 Affordable Shipping Services in India for online businesses
“The development of commodity-specific economic rail corridors can de-congest existing lines, mostly in the eastern part of the country. This is supportive of faster freight movement and turnaround times and should help reduce the logistics cost for India from 12% of GDP, improving competitiveness, especially manufacturing, against peers.” CRISIL
With all these new announcements that are in favour of entrepreneurship and eCommerce, 2024 continues to be a promising year for online business.
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