The Hindu Businessline

Budget boosts spending on manufacturing and infrastructure projects, no big-bang announcements to spur economy

While the capital expenditure allocation has not increased sharply this year, it comes on the back of a multi-year expansion in public capex, which now stands at over 12.2 lakh crore for FY 202627

The Budgets focus on rural resilience helps build a more dependable and sustainable demand base, rather than relying on short-term stimuli

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said 10 per cent of nominal GDP growth is realistic

But, PLI for auto increased by more than 110 per cent to 5,940 crore in FY27

This is a Budget that thinks about Indias future rather than short-term giveaways

The Union Budget 2026 has announced incremental measures to strengthen Indias rural economy.

Capex up 22% at 17.14 lakh cr; electronics parts manufacture allocation doubled to 40,000 cr; SME Growth Fund gets 10,000 cr; markets crash on higher STT on F&O

If the proposal in the Finance Bill, 2026 were to come into effect, buybacks will be taxed as capital gains itself

Get ready for exciting initiatives like a major boost in veterinary services and cool tech tools, including a multilingual AI platform called Vistaar to help farmers level up their game

S. Sivakumar advocates for Bharat Vistaar to provide farmers actionable insights, empowering them to make smarter decisions and increase earnings.

Finance Commission keeps states share, grants rise, GDP-based criteria added

Budgets capex focus and fiscal anchor changes to sustain economic growth and stability.

This Budget re-empowers Indias global role, says Modi

The restructuring of Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation is a transformative move, say experts

Depository route for declarations, online route for relief

The state outperformed the national average GST growth of 5.8 per cent and ranked second among southern states

In an interview with businessline, the Minister highlighted the focus on labour-intensive sectors, boost to data centres and the services sector as well as a calibrated push for SEZ sales in the domestic market

The renewed emphasis on the need to improve manufacturing is a key component of Budget 2026.

While Islamabad has cleared the Pakistan cricket team to participate in the tournament, it has specifically barred the February 15 match against India

Fiscal deficit is pegged at 4.3%; the net market borrowings from dated securities are estimated at 11.7 lakh crore

Union Budget 202627 is not designed to stimulate consumption in the short term

Experts pointed out that this will also result in lowering ofbarriersfor certain capital-intensive and technology-led exports from the US to India

FMCG resilient, Financials sensitive and Oil & Gas lag

While the index has been trending higher since the beginning of the year, the Budget announcement, particularly the increase in Securities Transaction Tax, triggered the sharpest intraday jump since November 21 last year

The threshold for availing safe harbour for IT services is being enhanced from 300 crore to 2,000 crore

The scheme proposes to allow students, young professionals, salaried employees, technology sector workers and people who have recently returned to India after living abroad to voluntarily declare foreign income and assets that were missed to be declared earlier

The Budget avoids abrupt policy shifts and instead reinforces a credible medium-term strategy centred on investment-led growth

As the transition to a debt-to-GDP regime starts, the figure is 56.1 per cent for the current fiscal and is expected to go down further to 55.6% in FY27

Public capital expenditure proposed at 12.2 lakh crore in FY27 as allocations rise across roads, railways and waterways

The proposal exempted 17 drugs from basic customs duty, reducing it from 5/10% to nil, and another seven rare diseases were exempt from import duties on personal imports of drugs, medicines, and Food for Special Medical Purposes

The proposed amendment seeks to rationalise the penal consequences under these provisions

This has positive implications for the defence industry, but the stock reactions have been negative

Union Budget signals strategic defence focus with higher allocations across capital, revenue

The Centre aims to support Odisha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for creating dedicated rare earth corridors to promote mining, processing, research and manufacturing

The current budget allocation is 5,000 crore more than the revised estimates for 2025-26, and 2,000 crore higher than the budget estimate for that year

Goenka added that the simplification of tax processes, decriminalisation of compliance-related provisions, and GST rationalisation will ease adherence, improve predictability for businesses and encourage entrepreneurship

Currently, when the seller of the immovable property is a non-resident, the buyer is required to obtain a TAN to deduct tax at source

While the impact may be marginal for participants who trade less volume, those dealing in large volumes, such as high-frequency traders, could see a meaningful rise in their trading costs

According to the Income tax Department, a fee is imposed on the total income that has been filed during revised return

Under the Income Tax Act, 2025, prosecution rules in sections 473 to 485 and 494 are proposed to be reworked to make punishment lighter and more proportionate

The BSE PSU and BSE Energy indices still look good in spite of the fall

The senior Congress leader said revenue receipts were short by 78,086 crore, total expenditure was short by 1,00,503 crore

A 15% safe harbour margin on costs for related entities is also proposed.

The operating ratio remains tight at 98.9% for FY26. The Railways anticipates this to improve to 98.4% in FY27