Budget 2025 reaffirms India's position as innovation, knowledge-centric economy: SBI Chairman

The Union Budget 2025-26 reaffirms India as an innovation and knowledge-centric economy with a slew of reforms across agriculture, MSME, export centricity, education and healthcare, and balancing skills and AI, SBI Chairman C.S. Setty said on Saturday.

The rationalisation of personal tax reforms could unleash a potential consumption boom of at least Rs 3.3 lakh crore spend over baseline.

"The fiscal numbers are conservative. The budget has several bold initiatives for the Agri sector aimed at boosting farmers' income through crop diversification, participation in Agri value chains and focus on allied activities," said Setty.

The MSME sector will benefit from expanded credit availability through credit guarantees, empowering women entrepreneurs and credit cards for micro-enterprises.

"The enhancement of TCS limit on remittances, the enhancement of TDS limits for senior citizens will significantly simplify ease of doing business. Overall, the Budget is a significant step towards making India a global hub for innovation and advanced manufacturing," the SBI Chairman added.

According to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, there is no cut in capital expenditure. "With all this, fiscal prudence has been aligned to the glide path given in 2020," the Finance Minister said.

"We continue to place emphasis on the multiplier effect that capital expenditure done by government has shown has sustained us. We continue on that, and with all this, our fiscal prudence has been maintained,” said FM Sitharaman.

Meanwhile, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Ravi Agrawal said that for the assessment year 2024-25, around 8.75 crore returns have been filed, with all of these taxpayers set to benefit from the recent relief measures.

Even those earning Rs 24 lakh will gain a benefit of Rs 1.1 lakh, and one crore taxpayers will see the most advantage, as they will no longer have to pay any tax.

The choice to move to the new tax regime remains with the taxpayer, and there is no deadline for making the switch.

Additionally, TDS rates and thresholds have been rationalised, addressing a long-standing request from taxpayers for simplification, according to Agrawal.