Highlights of Union Budget – FY 2018-19

Dear Aspirants, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented 2018 Budget on Thursday, February 01 2018. This is the second time that the Railway Budget not presented separately and be a part of the Union budget presented by Arun Jaitley.

Budget 2018 will focus on Agriculture and Rural Economy, Health, Infra, Senior Citizens

Agriculture:

• 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.
• 200 crore allotted for organic farming sector
• Fishery and aquaculture and animal husbandry funds with a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore
• Credit for agricultural activities is up from Rs 10 lakh crore to Rs 11 lakh crore .
• The Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost.
• The government will ensure payment of full MSP even if farmers sell below MSP.
• Agri-related stocks gain after it is said MSP for all crops to be increased by 1.5 times.
• Kaveri Seeds Co Ltd rose 2.4%, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd 2.1%, Escorst Ltd rose 5%, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd rose 2.2%.
• 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
• Cluster-model approach to be adopted for agricultural production
• Allocation to food processing ministry is being doubled from Rs 715 crore to Rs 1400 crore.
• Rs 500 crore announced for Operation Green
• Grameen Agricultural Market (GRAM) will provide farmers a means to sell directly to buyers.

Tax proposals:

• Number of tax payers increased to 8.27 crore from 6.47 crore
• 100% tax reduction available for FPOs turnover of Rs 100 crore
• Direct taxes growth at 12.6 per cent this year
• Farmer producer companies with turnover of Rs 100 crore or more to get 100 per cent reduction under I-T Act for next 5 years
• Propose to extend tax relaxation up to 150 days to footwear and leather industry for employement creation
• Corporate tax to be reduced to 25 per cent for MSMEs with turnover of Rs 250 crore

Individual taxes:

• Salaried tax payers 1.89 crore returns filed Rs.1.44 lakh crore tax paid
• Introduces standard deduction of Rs 40,000 in lieu of transport and medical allowance. No other proposal for the salaried class.
• Senior citizens interest income exemption increased to Rs 50,000 from Rs 10,000 for all fixed and RD schemes, including small savings
• Sec 80 D increased from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 for senior citizens

Education sector proposals:

• Huge outlay – one lakh crore over the next four years for revitalising educational infrastructure
• Education to be treated holistically from pre-nursery to class 12
• Schools to move from blackboard to digital board gradually
• Every block in the country with 50% tribal people will have a school under Eklavya scheme
• Government will launch PM’s research fellows this year for B Techs from premier institutes.
• He proposes to launch the Revitalising of Infrastructure and Systems of Education (RISE) by next year.
• We propose to set up two new full-fledged schools of planning and architecture.
• 18 new schools of planning and architecture will be set up in the IITs and NITs.

MSME proposals:

• Rs 3,794 crore allocated for credit support to through capital and interest subsidy to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises
• Government to announce measures to ease NPA burden on MSMEs
• Online sanction of loans to MSMEs will be increased
• In 2018-19, to allocate Rs 3 lakh cr lending under MUDRA scheme

Rural Development:      

• All poor households to be covered under PMJDY and pension, insurance schemes on mission mode
• Identified 115 aspirational districts for better development in healthcare, education, electricity
• Rs 16,730 crore allocated for rural sanitation
• 4400 villages along the Ganga river have been declared Open Defecation Free
• 47 projects under Namani Gange have been completed
• Microfinance, unorganised sector pension schemes thru jan dhan yojana
• Dedicated affordable housing fund to be financed from priority sector allocation
• Focus on maximum livelihood in rural areas in next year
• Over 6 crore toilets built under Swachh Bharat; 2 crore toilets to be built under in 2018-2019
• 4 crore houses in rural India to get free electricity, Rs 14,000 crore allocated
• Government aims to disburse 8 crore gas connections under UJJWALA scheme, up from 5 crore
• 16,000 crore set apart for PM Saubhagya Yojana

Health:

• Education and healthcare allocation increased to Rs 1.38 lakh crore
• The National health Policy 2017 has envisioned health and wellness centres as the foundation of India’s healthcare system.
• 1,200 crore committed for this flagship programme and invites contributions from the private sector.
• A flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. It will provide them with upto 5 lakh per family per year in secondary and tertiary care institutions.
• This scheme will have 50 crore beneficiaries.
• These schemes will generate lakhs of jobs, particularly for women, The government is progressing towards universal health coverage.
• Tuberculosis claims more lives every year than any other disease. The government will provide ₹600 crore for nutrititonal support to all TB
• 24 new government medical colleges will be set up by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.
• At least one medical college for three parliamentary constituencies
• The Jivan Bima Yojana has benefited 5.22 crore families. 187 projects have been sanctioned under Namami Gange.
• All 4,465 Ganga gram villages have been declared open-defecation free. The government has identified 115 aspirational districts and will invest in social services.

Infrastructure and transport:

• Railway capex for the year 2018-19 is Rs.1.48 lakh crore. 18,000 km of doubling will eliminate capacity constraints.
• ₹50 lakh crore is needed to create world class infrastructure in the country.
• 99 cities have been selected with outlay of Rs.2.09 lakh crore under Smart City programme.
• 10 prominent tourist sites will be developed into iconic ones to boost tourism.
• We are moving towards optimal electrification of railway networks.
• All stations with more than 25,000 footfalls will have escalators.
• All trains to be progressively provided with WiFI, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities.
• UDAN shall connect 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads in the country.
• AAI has 124 airports. We propose to expand our airport capacity to handle more than one billion trips a year.
• Ujwala will give 8 crore women new LPG connections.
• Special scheme to address air pollution in Delhi-NCR region
• Total 187 projects sanctioned under the Namami Gange programme.
• Announce allocation of Rs. 56,619 crore for SC welfare and Rs. 39,135 crore for ST welfare
• Rs 3 lakh crore allocated for PM MUDRA Yojana
• The Saubhagya Yojana will be another focus for the government. Six crore toilets have been built already, and in the next year, two crore additional toilets will be constructed.
• Loans to self-help groups will increase to ₹75,000 crore. He allocates ₹5,750 crore to National Livelihood Mission and ₹2,600 crore to the groundwater irrigation scheme.
• The government will contribute 12% of EPF contribution for new employees in all sectors for the next three years.
• Bharatmala project approved for better road connectivity at Rs 5.35 lakh crore.

Finance and investment:

• The RBI has issued guidelines to nudge corporates to access the bond markets.
• Corporate bonds rated at BBB are investment grade.
• The Commerce Ministry is developing a national logistics portal as a single window program to boost the logistics sector.
• Disinvestment target of ₹80,000 crore has been set for this year.
• The government will recapitalise public sector banks to help them lend an additional ₹5 lakh crore.
• United India Insurance, Oriental Insurance and National Insurance will be merged and then listed.
• Gold monetisation scheme will be revamped to allow people to open hassle-free gold deposit accounts.

Connectivity and defence:

• NITI AAYOG will establish programme to direct initiatives to develop artificial intelligence initiatives.
• Phase 1 of Bharat Net programme has been completed.
• The government will explore use of blockchain technology proactively to boost digital economy.
• The government will not consider cryptocurrency as legal tender.

Members’ salaries:

• Emoluments will revised for the President to ₹5 lakh, ₹4lakh for Vice-President and ₹3.5 lakh per month for Governors.
• Changes to refix emoluments to MPs with effect from April 1, 2018
• The law will provide automatic revision of emoluments every five years indexed to inflation.
• Total revenue expenditure of the government is ₹21.57 lakh crore.
• Fiscal deficit 2013-14 was 4.4 per cent of the GDP.
• In 2017-18 3.5 per cent of the GDP. Projected fiscal deficit 3.3 per cent of the GDP.