Nirmala Sitharaman sets the trend for India going paperless in the Union Budget 2021 session, by ditching the paper format to sport a digital tablet. The markets went into a tizzy as Sensex soared to above 500 points and Nifty went above the 13,700-mark on Monday.
February 1st spells hope for several industry watchers as Sitharaman promises a never before budget with India having flattened the COVID-19 curve. The country is looking at 2021 as the year of hope to recover from the huge economic losses that India has grappled with amidst the pandemic.
Early trade trends saw the S&P BSE Sensex rising to nearly 500 points to reach an intraday high of 46,777.56. Nifty 50 on the other hand climbed as much as 139.2 points to 13,773.80. At 9:27 am, the Sensex was trading at 46,690.77, up 405.00 points (0.87 per cent), while the Nifty was at 13,736.65, up 102.05 points (0.75 per cent).
More cushion to the economy was what expected from budget 2021, taking forward the momentum of a series of announcements on stimulus packages in 2020. Ahead of the budget session, gains were seen in the domestic indices, mainly led by banking and financial stocks. Some gains were also seen in IT and pharma stocks despite earlier losses.
With the emphasis on less dependency on China and more of a ‘Make in India’ or ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ approach, the start-up sector now sees a major boost to build confidence of moving forward with gusto amidst pocket friendly SOPS and without the burden of heavy taxes levied on small and medium scale businesses.
Sitharaman, the mascot of hope, delivered her speech in Parliament with a well rounded budget 2021 looking to provide stability and economic growth. The good news is, no announcements of new taxes.