Highlights from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget.

Ensure that you always receive messages from business-standard.com Add bsl@bsmail.in to your Address Book or Safe List. If you cannot view this message, please [click here]( Highlights from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget. The supplementary nutrition programme and the Poshan Abhiyaan has been merged to launch Mission Poshan 2.0 to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome. The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore to the rural employment guarantee programme MGNREGA for the next fiscal 2021-22, substantially lower than the actual expenditure of Rs 1.11 trillion in the current fiscal. The government set aside over Rs 7,100 crore as development assistance for countries in its neighbourhood as well as in Africa and Latin America, with Bhutan getting the maximum allocation of Rs 3,004 crore, while Rs 100 crore will be given to Chabahar port project in Iran. Increase in allocation to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) to Rs 40,000 crore and doubling of Micro Irrigation Fund announced in the Budget will accelerate the progress of ongoing rural infrastructure projects, Nabard chairman G R Chintala said on Monday. Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to impose a basic customs duty of 10 per cent on "wet blue chrome tanned leather, crust leather, finished leather of all kinds, including splits and sides" from nil duty. Sitharaman proposed 10% hike in the farm loan disbursal target to Rs 16.5 trillion, and introduced an agri infra and development cess of up to 100% to create post-harvest infrastructure for improving farmers' income. Petrol and diesel prices will not be cut as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ignored calls for a reduction in excise duty rates to help bring down prices from historic high levels. Instead, her Budget for the 2021-22 fiscal tweaked excise duty structure to accommodate an agriculture infrastructure development cess, whose accruals would not be shared with the states. The Ministry of Education has been allocated Rs 93,224.31 crore in the 2021-22 Budget, an increase of more than Rs 8,100 crore from the revised estimates for the current fiscal. The Ministry was originally allocated Rs 99,311.52 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal, which was eventually revised to Rs 85,089.07 crore as the coronavirus pandemic hit the country and classes were ordered shut to prevent the spread of the virus. The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry was allocated Rs 54,581 crore for the next fiscal. The government has allocated 23,500 crore for the projects related to Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) and Metro services in the country. The Central government allocated Rs 2,596.14 crore to sports budget for the next financial year 2021-22, less by Rs.230.78 crore -- or, 8.16 per cent -- allocated in the previous fiscal. [Read more Highlights]( [Read more stories]( CO-SPONSORED BY [About us]( [Partner with us]( [Career]( [Advertise with us]( [Connect BS]( [E-Paper]( [Feedback]( If you do not wish to receive Business Standard e-mails in the future, please [click here](mailto:rm-===Xmxkb===E5===La===Q===Bzb3k===Bam===B9a0===Q=@mailmx1.stakemail.com?subject=Unsubscribe&body=Unsubscribe me.) to unsubscribe