The domestic equity barometers traded with strong gains at noon on Wednesday. The Budget for 2023-24 is being currently presented in the Parliament by the Union Finance Minister. The Nifty traded tad above the 17,800 mark. Markets in Asia advanced across the board today.

At 11:59 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 544.19 points or 0.91% to 60,094.09. The Nifty 50 index added 142.75 points or 0.81% to 17,804.90.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 1.10% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 1.17%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 2296 shares rose and 1051 shares fell. A total of 147 shares were unchanged.

Union Budget 2023-24:

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is currently presenting Budget 2023 in the Parliament. This is the final full-fledged budget of the Narendra Modi government before the general election next year.

The seven priorities of this Budget are inclusive development, reaching the last mile, infra & investment, unleashing the potential, green growth, youth power and financial sector.

Sitharaman in her Budget speech today said that India's FY23 GDP growth is estimated at 7%.

The government is increasing capital investment outlay by 33% to Rs 10 lakh crore, which would be 3.3% of GDP. This is highest ever capital outlay by India.

The outlay for PM Awaas Yojana is being enhanced by 66% to over Rs 79,000 crore.

The government has announced capital outlay of Rs 2.40 lakh crore for railways, an increase of 9x over FY14.

50 additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes, advanced landing zones will be revitalised. Cities will be incentivised to improve creditworthiness for municipal bonds. About 100 critical transport infra projects for steel, ports, fertiliser, coal, foodgrain sectors have been identified with an investment of Rs 75,000 crore including Rs 15,000 crore from private sources.

The government will extend 50-year interest free loan to State governments for one more year, FM Sitharaman said.

The government has announced Rs 35,000 crore priority capital for the energy transition. Battery storage will get viability gap funding.

FM added that an Agriculture Accelerator Fund will be set up to encourage agri-startups by young entrepreneurs.

Continuing our commitment to food security, we're implementing from 1 January 2023, a scheme to supply free food grain to all Antyodaya and priority households for one year under PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, FM said.

She added that the government will launch the Atmanirbhar Clean Plant Programme to improve availability of disease-free quality planting material for high-value horticultural crops at an outlay of Rs 2,200 crore.

The government has also initiated computerisation for 63,000 primary agricultural credit societies with an investment of Rs 2,516 crore.

Over the next 3 years, one crore farmers will get assistance to adopt natural farming. 10,000 bio input resource centres will be set up.

The government will launch a sub-scheme under PM Matsya Sampada Yojana with an outlay of Rs 6,000 crore to further enable those involved in fisheries.

Global Markets:

Asian stocks edged higher on Wednesday as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's Wednesday meeting, as well as some economic data in the region.

China's factory activity in January signaled a further contraction from previous readings, albeit at a slower pace, marking the sixth monthly contraction in a row. The Caixin manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index for January came in at 49.2 on Wednesday, a slightly higher reading than December's 49.

Japan's factory activity logs another contraction in January, marking a third straight month of contraction. The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index held steady at 48.9, below the 50-point mark separating growth from contraction.

US stocks edged higher on Tuesday on the back of strong earnings and encouraging inflation data.

The Fed is expected to hike rates by one-quarter of a percentage point. Investors will be looking for clues about how much higher the central bank will take rates in the fight against inflation.

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