Images: Shutterstock, PTI
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2026 in Parliament on Sunday, February 1, laying out India’s financial plan for the upcoming year.
From taxation to sectoral allocations, FM made many big announcements during the Budget speech. Let’s look at the key takeaways.
The FM highlighted the sustained increase in government capital expenditure and proposed to increase it to ₹12.2 lakh crore for FY27, up from ₹11.2 lakh crore in FY26.
FM Sitharaman proposed adding seven high-speed rail corridors to promote environmentally sustainable travel across India.
The investment limit for an individual NRI in a company has been increased from 5% to 10%. The aggregate limit for all NRI investors in a company has been raised from 10% to 24%.
The FM proposed to increase the securities transactions tax (STT) to 0.05% from 0.02% on futures and to 0.15% from 0.01% on options.
To boost investment in data centres, the FM proposed a tax holiday for any foreign company that provides cloud services to customers by using data centre services from India till 2047.
The Budget 2026 introduced a dedicated ₹10,000 crore SME Growth Fund, aimed at creating ‘future champions’ and incentivising enterprises based on select criteria.
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