Budget 2023: FM Nirmala Sitharaman Announces New Savings Scheme For Women

The scheme will be called 'Mahila Samman Saving Certificate', with a fixed interest rate of 7.5 percent.

FM Nirmala Sitharaman announces new investment scheme for women in the Union Budget 2023-24

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New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a one-time small saving scheme for women as she presented the Union Budget 2023-24 in Parliament on Wednesday. The scheme will be called 'Mahila Samman Saving Certificate', with a fixed interest rate of 7.5 percent. The scheme will have a tenure of two years.

"One-time new small saving under 'Mahila Samman Saving Patra'. The deposit facility for the women and girls will be for a period of two years, with rate of interest 7.5 percent," Sitharaman announced.

The deposit can be made in the name of a woman or a girl child. The scheme will have a partial withdrawal facility as well. In this scheme, the maximum deposit amount is kept at Rs 2 lakh.

Underscoring the vision of Nari Shakti, she pointed out that the economic empowerment of women, the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihood Mission has achieved remarkable success by mobilizing rural women into 81 lakh Self Help Group (SHG).

"Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihood Mission has achieved remarkable success by mobilizing rural women into 81 lakh Self Help Groups. We will enable these groups to reach the next stage of economic empowerment through the formation of large producer enterprises or collectives with each having several thousand members and managed professionally," Sithraman said.

"They will be helped with the supply of raw materials and for better design, quality, branding, and marketing of their products. Through supporting policies, they will be enabled to scale up their operations to serve the large consumer markets, as has been the case with several start-ups growing into ‘Unicorns’," she added.

This was a crucial Budget being the last full Budget of the Modi Government before the 2024 general elections. From major industries to MSMEs, salaried classes to farmers, and education to healthcare, everyone was eyeing some relief from this Budget.

To make people aware of the pro-people measured announced in the Budget, the BJP will start a 12-day nationwide campaign on Wednesday.

India’s budget will attempt to meet the hopes and aspirations of common citizens and be a ray of hope for the world even as the world is going through a global economic turmoil, Prime Minister Modi said.

Addressing the media ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament, Modi said recognised voices in the world of the economy were bringing positive messages from all sides.

On Tuesday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey (2022-23) in Parliament. The Economic Survey 2022-23 has forecast India’s GDP growth for the next fiscal 2023-24 in a broad range of 6-6.8 per cent. Its baseline forecast for real GDP growth is 6.5 per cent.  

According to the Economic Survey 2022-23, the Indian economy is “staging a broad-based recovery across sectors”, positioning itself to “ascend to the pre-pandemic growth path in FY23.”