The Finance Bill 2022 will give effect to the financial proposals of the central government for the financial year 2022-23. 

The Union Budget delivered today in Parliament was the fourth presented by Sitharaman. 

In her address today, Sitharaman said that Goods and Services Tax played a remarkable reform in India's GDP. 

"GST revenues are buoyant despite the pandemic, gross GST collection for the month of January are over Rs 1.4 lakh crore. The highest since the inception of GST," she said. 

Taking together with provision for the creation of capital assets through grants and aids to states, the minister said, "Effective capital expenditure of central government is estimated at Rs 10.68 lakh crore in 2022-23, which will be around 4.1 per cent of GDP." 

The minister also spoke about the introduction of a central bank digital currency that will give boost to digital economy and thereby lead to cheaper currency management system. Blockchain and other technologies will be used by RBI to issue the same from 2022, the finance minister said.

Her speech lasted for 90 minutes.

One of the highlights of her fourth Budget is that personal taxation slabs have been left untouched.

Both Centre and states govt employees' tax deduction limit to be increased from 10% to 14% to help the social security benefits of state govt employees and bring them at par with the Central govt employees

Any income from transfer of any virtual digital asset shall be taxed at the rate of 30%. No deduction in respect of any expenditure or allowance shall be allowed while computing such income, except cost of acquisition

Corporate surcharge is also being reduced from 12% to 7%, she added

Low carbon development strategy opens up employment opportunity   

Rs 19,500 cr additional allocation for PLI for manufacturing high efficiency solar modules has been made   

Contracts for laying of optical fibre net to all villages under BharatNet to be provided under PPP mode   

Voluntary exit for corporates to be cut down to 6 months from 2 years   

 Spectrum auction will be conducted to roll out 5G mobile services within 2022-23 by private firms

A completely paperless, e-bill system will be launched by ministries for procurement 

5 existing academic institutions for urban planning to be designated as Centre for Excellence with endowment fund of Rs 250 cr 

75,000 compliances have been eliminated and 1,486 union laws repealed to make it easier for businesses 

E-passport with embedded chip will be rolled out 

Effective Capital Expenditure of the central government is estimated at Rs 10.68 lakh crores in 2022-23, about 4.1% of GDP 

68% of the capital procurement budget for Defence to be earmarked for domestic industry to promote Aatmanirbharta and reduce dependence on imports of defence equipment. This is up from the 58% last fiscal

Among other announcements she made are: 

Next phase of ease of doing business, ease of living to be launched   

Data exchange among all-mode operators to be brought in on unified logistics interface platform to enable efficient movement of goods   

Villages on northern border of India will be covered under a new vibrant village programme to enhance development   

To reduce the delay in payment, an online bill system to be launched which will be used by all central ministries 

Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector offers immense potential to employ youth. An AVGC promotion task force with all stakeholders will be set up to recommend ways to realise this and build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand 

Fund to be facilitated through NABARD to finance startups for agriculture and rural enterprise, relevant for farm produce value chain. Startups will support FPOs and provide tech to farmers

Among other announcements made by her are: 

Our government has comprehensively revamped schemes of the ministry of women and child development such as Mission Shakti, Mission Vatsalya, Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 to provide benefits. 

Other announcements she made are:

'One class, one TV channel' program of PM eVIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels. This will enable all states to provide supplementary education in regional languages for classes 1 to 12. 

MSMEs such as Udyam, e-shram, NCS & Aseem portals will be interlinked,their scope will be widened. They will now perform as portals with live organic databases providing G-C, B-C & B-B services such as credit facilitation, enhancing entrepreneurial opportunities.   

Kisan drones for crop assessment, land records, spraying of insecticides expected to drive a wave of technology in agri sector.   

Desh stack e-portal to be launched to promote digital infra. One Station One Product to be popularised to help local businesses and supply chains. 

2,000 km of #Rail network to be brought under the indigenous world-class technology KAWACH, for safety and capacity augmentation Rs 6,000 crore programme to rate MSMEs to be rolled out over 5 years.   

Govt to pay Rs 2.37 lakh crore towards procurement of wheat and paddy under MSP operations.

Budget 2022 seeks to lay the foundation to steer the economy over Amrit Kaal of next 25 years, from India at 75 to India at 100, continuing to build on the vision of Budget 2021, she says.

'We are in the midst of an Omicron wave,' she tells Parliament. We are however in a strong position to withstand the impact, Sitharaman says.

This is Sitharaman's 4th Union Budget, and the Narendra Modi government's 10th Budget. 

The Budget documents usually include the finance minister's speech in Parliament, highlights, annual financial statement, finance bill containing tax proposals, memorandum explaining the provisions in the financial bill, and macroeconomic framework statement. 

They also include the medium-term fiscal policy cum fiscal policy strategy statement, outcome framework for schemes, customs notification, implementation of previous Budget announcements, receipt budget, expenditure budget and statement of budget estimates.

You can also watch the live streaming of Union Budget 2022 on Rediff.com, here.

Earlier today, Sitharaman met President Ram Nath Kovind ahead of the Budget presentation. She was accompanied by Ministers of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Bhagwat Karad and other officials from the ministry. 

The Budget speech will begin at around 11 am today with Sitharaman beginning it with an address to the speaker of Lok Sabha. Usually, the duration of the presentation ranges from 90 to 120 minutes. 

She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. 

he, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format. 

"#AatmanirbharBharatKaBudget | From 'Bahi Khata' to Made in India' Tablet Finance Minister @nsitharaman carrying the Budget in the #paperless format in a tablet kept inside a red cover with National Emblem embossed on it instead of the briefcase or 'Bahi Khata'," Digital India tweeted. 

With the tablet carefully kept inside a red coloured cover with a golden coloured national emblem embossed on it instead of the briefcase, she went straight to Parliament after meeting the President at Rashtrapati Bhawan. 

Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman finance minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget briefcase for the traditional Bahi-Khata to carry Union Budget Papers. 

She used the same in the following year, and in a pandemic-hit 2021, she swapped traditional papers with a digital tablet for carrying her speech as well as other Budget documents. 

Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 (FY2022-23) is the Modi government's 10th straight Budget since 2014 (including one interim Budget presented ahead of general elections in 2019).

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Railways, Communications and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and  Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi were among other ministers who have arrived for the Cabinet meet.

Here are the key numbers to watch out for in the Budget for 2022-23, which is widely expected to boost spending towards policies that create jobs, boost manufacturing, helping rural and agri-economy and infrastructure creation. 

Sitharaman, who had in her first budget in 2019 replaced leather briefcase -- which had been in use for decades for carrying budget documents -- with a traditional red cloth bahi-khata, has spurt in tax collections to her aid in the budget that is expected to a spend-all budget. 

* COVID spending: India had started the world's largest COVID inoculation programme on January 16, 2021. The expenditure on vaccination this fiscal, as well as in the next would be the most-watched figures in the Budget. The Budget estimate for vaccine expenditure for the current fiscal was Rs 35,000 crore. 

* Fiscal Deficit: The budgeted fiscal deficit, which is the difference between the government expenditure and income, for the current fiscal ending March 2021 is 6.8 per cent, against 9.3 per cent in the last fiscal. The number for the 2022-23 fiscal would be in focus. 

* Disinvestment/Privatisation: The government has rarely met the high disinvestment targets set in Budgets. With a focus on privatisation and keeping in mind fiscal consolidation and capital expenditure, the number would be closely watched. 

* Capital Expenditure: The government's planned capital expenditure for this fiscal is budgeted at over Rs 5.5 lakh crore. The government has to push infrastructure creation and this number would be in focus for the next fiscal too. 

* Tax revenue: The government has budgeted a 9.5 per cent growth in tax collections at Rs 22.2 lakh crore for the 2021-22 fiscal (April-March, 2022). With Economic Survey projecting a GDP growth of 8-8.5 per cent in the next fiscal, the buoyancy in tax revenue too would be closely watched. 

* Borrowing: The government's gross borrowing budget was at Rs 12.05 lakh crore, while net borrowing was pegged at Rs 9.37 lakh crore in the current financial year ending March 31. The government borrows from the market to fund its fiscal deficit and the borrowing number would be watched by the market, especially on the back of expected higher capital expenditures to boost growth.

She will present the Union Budget2022 at 11 am today.

The Budget session of Parliament began on Monday with the address by President Ram Nath Kovind to both Houses in the Central Hall. 

The finance minister tabled this year's Economic Survey, which was centred around the theme of 'Agile approach'. 

"The session is scheduled to conclude on April 8 wherein the first part of the session will extend up to February 11," said the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Sunday. 

"There will be a break from February 12 to March 13 during which the standing committees will examine demands-for-grants of ministries/departments and prepare reports thereon. In all, there will be 29 sittings; 10 in the first part and 19 in the second part," the Lok Sabha Secretariat's press release stated. 

From February 2 to February 11, the House is scheduled to sit from 4 pm to 9 pm. 

Thus, five hours have been scheduled per sitting during the first part of the Budget Session. There will be no Zero Hour and Question Hour in both Houses of Parliament during the first two days of the Budget Session.