NEW DELHI:
The last full-fledged budget of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government was presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley which announced several developmental schemes keeping in focus the rural and middle-class population.
Jaitley said this year’s Union Budget was focusing on four aspects — strengthening of agriculture, education, healthcare benefits and improving infrastructure. There is a bit of disappointment for the common man and for consumer sentiment in general as there will be no change in income tax rates which hoped for a reduction in income tax ahead of an election year.
The reintroduction of standard deduction after many years of Rs.40,000 a year may not really enthuse tax payers. There is some relief in medicals bills, as the exemption on annual health insurance premiums has been increased from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000.
This was the last full Budget of the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the country goes to polls in 2019. It was also the first since the government effected major economic reforms, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
HIGHLIGHTS OF BUDGET 2018
Proposes to increase the custom duty on mobiles from 15% to 20% and on some other mobile parts to 15%, and some parts of TVs to 15%.
Increase the health and education cess to 4%.
Proposes to tax long-term capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh in listed stock at 10%.
Rs 50,000 additional benefit to senior citizens for investment in mediclaim.
A standard deduction of additional Rs 40,000 for salaried employees. This move will benefit 2.5 crore taxpayers.
No changes in the structure of income tax for individuals.
Rs 7000 crore will be the revenue foregone for the reduced corporate tax on MSMEs.
Propose to extend the benefit of the reduced corporate rate of 25% for companies with reported turnover of up to Rs 250 crore.
100% tax exemption for the first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs. 100 crore and above.
41% more returns were filed this year, which shows that more people have joined the tax net.
Revised fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 is 3.5% of GDP, fiscal deficit of 3.3% expected for 2018-19.
Automatic revision of MPs’ emoluments every five years, indexed to inflation.
Emoluments of President, Vice President and Governor being revised: Rs 5 lakh; 4 lakh; Rs 3.5 lakh per month respectively.
Recapitalisation to enable PSU banks to lend Rs 5 lakh crore.
The government insurance companies to be merged into a single entity, and subsequently listed in the stock exchange, as part of the disinvestment programme.
The government will assign every enterprise in India a unique ID on the lines of Aadhaar.
Explore the use of blockchain.
To take all steps to eliminate use of cryptocurrencies which are being used to fund illegitimate transactions.
Rs 5.97 lakh crore allocated for infrastructure spending in India.
5 lakh WiFi hotspots to be set up in rural areas to provide easy Internet access.
Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations has been taken up; Mumbai transport system is being expanded; suburban network of 160 km planned for Bengaluru.
Proposes to revamp the system of sanctioning of loans to SMEs. The information required for sanctioning the loan will be linked with GSTN and all required information can be fetched from GSTN Portal. It will help to grant the loans quickly and will help in reducing processing time.
UDAN will connect 56 unserved airports in India.
An institute is coming up at Vadodara to train people for the bullet train programme.
AMRUT programme will focus on water supply to all households in 500 cities. Water supply contracts for 494 projects worth 19,428 core awarded.
Rs 1,48,528 crore is the capital expenditure for the Indian Railways for 2018-19… All trains to be progressively provided with WiFi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities.
Bharatmala project approved for better road connectivity at Rs 5.35 lakh crore.
Proposal to develop 10 prominent tourist destinations as Iconic tourism destinations.
Women’s contribution reduced to 8.33% towards PF in the first 3 years for new EPF accounts… The government will contribute 12% of EPF contribution for new employees in all sectors for the next three years.
70 lakh farming jobs have been created this year, shows an independent study.
Rs 3 lakh crore allocated for PM MUDRA Yojana.
Announced allocation of Rs. 56,619 crore for SC welfare and Rs. 39,135 crore for ST welfare
24 new government medical colleges and hospitals to be set up by upgrading existing district hospitals.
Rs 600 crore for nutritional support to TB patients.
One medical college per every three constituency.
Have decided to take healthcare protection to a new aspirational level. Launching a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, benefiting approximately 50 crore. Providing Rs 5 lakh per family per year for medical reimbursement, under National Health Protection Scheme. This will be world’s largest health protection scheme.
Rs 1200 crore for the flagship programme in health wellness centres.
Eighteen new schools of planning and architecure will be set up. Proposes railway university in Vodadara.
Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population. Scheme for revitalizing school infrastructure, with an allocation of 1 lakh crore rupees over four years. Called RISE – Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education.
Integrated B.Ed programme to be initiated for teachers, to improve quality of teachers.
Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for providing livelihood to rural India through infrastructure building.
Loans to self help groups will increase to Rs 75,000 crore by March 2019.
In the next financial year,Govt to target the construction of two crore toilets.
Removal of crop residue to be subsidised in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue:
Ujwala will give 8 crore women new LPG connections.
Special scheme to address air pollution in Delhi-NCR region.
Credit for agricultural activities is up from Rs 10 lakh crore to Rs 11 lakh crore .
Fishery and aquaculture and animal husbandry funds with a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore.
Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets.
Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of Rs 1290 crore to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.
Grameen Agricultural Market (GRAM) will provide farmers a means to sell directly to buyers.
Rs 500 crore announced for Operation Green.
Allocation to food processing ministry is being doubled from Rs 715 crore to Rs 1400 crore.
Cluster-model approach to be adopted for agricultural production.
The focus is on low-cost farming, higher MSP. Emphasis is on generating farm and non-farm employment for farmers.
470 APMCs have been connected to eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018… Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets
The government will ensure payment of full MSP even if farmers sell below MSP.
The Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost.
