<span style="color: #222222;">Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for 2023-24 in Parliament yesterday. Attractive incentives and rebates in the new income tax regime, a steep hike in capital investments, and the biggest ever outlay in railways were the three big takeaways of Budget.<br />''<br />''In her Speech, Ms Sitharaman also proposed to use Permanent Account Number (PAN) card as as a common identifier for all digital systems of government agencies.<br />''<br />''The Government has also enhanced the outlay for Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana by 66 per cent to over 79  thousand crore rupees.<br />''<br />''The Defence Ministry has been allocated 5.94 lakh crore rupees in Budget 2023-24. This is 13.18 percent of the total budget, and a jump of 13 percent over previous year.<br />''<br />''The Government has also decided to continue the 50-year interest free loan to state governments for one more year to spur investment in infrastructure and to incentivize them for complementary policy actions, with a significantly enhanced outlay of 1.3 lakh crore rupees.<br />''<br />''Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, the allocation of around 2.40 lakh crore to the Railways in the Union Budget will give a push to various infrastructure projects in the country.<br />''<br />''Addressing a press conference in New Delhi yesterday, Mr Vaishnaw said, 1275 stations would be redeveloped under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme.  </span><br />