Union Budget 2019-20 is for 130 crore Indians — rich or poor, young or old, entrepreneurs or industrialists - promoting new work opportunities for the youth of India and for skilled manpower. It perfectly encapsulates Honorable Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi's vision of New India and will lead to investment, growth & economic development leading to welfare of farmers, poor & middle class of the country.

The Start-ups and their investors who file requisite declarations and provide information in their returns will not be subjected to any kind of scrutiny in respect of valuations of share premiums. A TV programme is proposed to be started exclusively for start-ups for promoting them, discussing issues affecting their growth, matchmaking with venture capitalists and for funding and tax planning.

Inclusion of solar storage batteries and charging infrastructure in the FAME scheme will give a boost to manufacturing of Electric Vehicles. Government has already moved GST council to lower the GST rate on electric vehicles from 12% to 5%.

The Government has approved a pension scheme for shopkeepers/ retail traders and self-employed persons for providing monthly minimum assured pension of Rs. 3,000/- for the entry age group of 18-40 years. It is a voluntary and contribution based central sector scheme. The Central Government’s share will be matching to the subscriber’s contribution.

Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that both Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare have committed to establish a framework to double farm exports from Rs. 2.75 lakh crores to about Rs. 7 lakh crores by 2024-2025. He also announced that a Cooperative Sector Export Promotion Forum will be established as an exchange platform for the cooperatives in India.

With an objective of boosting exports, domestic manufacturing and reducing trade deficit, Directorate General of Foreign Trade has invited suggestions for the proposed new policy, within 15 days, from all concerned, which can be uploaded on Google Form (Click here)

The increase can be attributed to various initiatives taken by the government in recent years for promotion of investment in SEZs, including Periodic review of the policy and operational framework of SEZs, Reduction of Minimum Land Area requirement to 50% for Multi-product and Sector-specific SEZs and Introduction of Website and app. In the year 2018-19, 20,61,055 persons were employed and exports of Rs. 7,01,179 crores were done through SEZs.

The Government has taken several steps that have led to an improvement in patent filing, as also for safeguarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) including Adoption of National IPR Policy, simplification of IP procedures and 80% patent fee reduction for Startups. In the year 2018-19, 15,284 patents were granted, as against 5,978 in the year 2014-15. In the same period, trademarks registered also gone up from 41,583 to 3,16,798.

The NEIA trust also provides covers to banks for Buyer’s Credit transactions, which facilitates foreign buyer to pay for project exports from India. The Government has recently approved Rs. 2,000 crores towards the capital infusion of ECGC during Financial Year FY 2017-18 to FY 2019-20 to enhance its capital base to augment its underwriting capacity. Additionally, this will support in boosting India's exports to emerging markets like Africa, CIS and Latin American countries.