Budget 2019: Time To Take Capital Markets Closer To Masses, Says Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled the Union Budget 2019 in parliament today. "We have set the ball rolling for a new India," she said as she opened her speech. This Budget is the first full budget by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government after returning to power in May. Ms Sitharaman, presenting the annual budget statement to parliament, said that it's time to take capital markets closer to the masses. Ms Sitharaman became the first full-time women finance minister to present Budget in India.

Presenting her first budget, Ms Sitharaman said steps need to be taken to bring capital markets closer to the people and proposed raising the threshold for minimum public shareholding from 25 per cent to 35 per cent.  "We propose to initiate steps for an electronic fundraising platform to list social enterprises and voluntary organisations. This will help social enterprises working for welfare raise capital," she said in her speech.

She said a number of steps would be taken in consultation with the Reserve Bank of india (RBI) and Sebi to deepen the corporate bond market. Announcing a number of measures related to capital markets, Ms Sitharaman said investments by FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors) and FPIs (Foreign Portfolio Investors) in debt securities would be allowed to be transferred and sold to domestic investors in a timely manner and also proposed FPI investment in debt securities issued by non-banking financial companies.    

She said a harmonised and hassle-free investment environment needs to be provided to foreign portfolio investors and KYC (Know Your Customer) norms for them would be rationalised and simplified to be made more investment-friendly, without compromising on the integrity of cross-border capital flows.