Budget 2022: FM Sitharaman’s announcement for women-centric schemes. Key points

Union Finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a slew of initiatives for women in her fourth budget speech on Tuesday.  “Recognising the importance of 'Nari Shakti', 3 schemes were launched to provide integrated development for women and children,” the FM said in the Parliament today. She said Mission Poshan 2.0, Mission Vatsalya and Mission Shakti were launched recently to provide integrated benefits to children. Saksham Anganwadi is a new generation Anganwadi that has better infrastructure and audiovisual aids covered by clean energy and provides improved environments for early childhood developments. Two lakh anganwadis will be upgraded and under the scheme, FM Sitharaman added.

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, women and children constitute 67.7% of India’s population as per the 2011 census.

Last year, FM Sitharaman allocated ₹20,105 crore for Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 scheme, ₹900 crore for Mission Vatsalya and ₹3,109 crore for Mission Shakti (Mission for Protection and Empowerment for Women).

On education front, the finance minister proposed to set up a digital university to provide education that will be built on a hub and spoke model.

She also said that the 1-Class-1-TV channel will be implemented to provide supplementary education to children to make up for the loss of formal education due to the COVID pandemic.

FM Sitharaman noted that hospitality services by the small and medium sectors are yet to bounce back. Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty extended their gains and were trading over 800 points higher in mid-session deals on Tuesday, as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman began her Budget speech.

The 30-share Sensex was trading 842.07 points or 1.45 per cent higher at 58,856.24, and the broader Nifty rose 165.50 points or 0.95 per cent to 17,505.35. Among the 30 Sensex constituents, 27 scrips were trading in the green. Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy's and and State Bank of India were the laggards.