Budget 2018: Govt is focusing on rural and agricultural economy, says Arun Jaitley
Follow UsUnion Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is presenting NDA government's last full-year budget ahead of the general elections next year.
Jaitley had earlier tabled the Economic Survey on Monday targeting a 7-7.5 per cent growth in 2018-19.
This year's budget session is crucial as it would be the first union budget to be presented under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
All sectors and citizens of the country have high expectations from Jaitley.
Here are the key points of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's speech:
No change has been proposed in personal Income Tax slab rates.
Standard deduction to the salaried class of INR 40,000 in place of Medical expense reimbursements and Transport allowance.
Rs 7.5 lakh per senior citizen limit for investment in interest-bearing LIC schemes doubled to Rs 15 lakh, senior citizens allowed Rs 50,000 deduction on health insurance premium paid in a year from earlier Rs 30,000. Rs 8,000 crore revenue lost due to the standard deduction allowed to salaried employees.
Power, LPG via Ujala and Saubhagya remains the area of concern for discoms, OMCs because of lack of recovery.
Government to formulate a comprehensive gold policy to develop gold as an asset class; gold monetisation scheme to be revamped.
MP salaries to be revised with effect from 1 April, 2018. It will increase every 5 years indexed to inflation.
For Year 2018 fiscal deficit at 5.95 lakh crore (3.5% of GDP) as against expected 3.2%.For Year 2019 fiscal deficit pegged at 3.3 of GDP.Govt committed to revised fiscal glide path.
Salary of President raised to Rs 5 lakh.Vice-President salary raised to Rs 4 lakh, Guvs salary raised to Rs 3.5 lakh.
Govt does not consider cryptocurrency as legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate its use in financing illegitimate activities.
Niti Aayog will establish a national programme to direct efforts towards Artificial Intelligence, including research and development of its applications.
56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads will be covered for usage by civilians. People wearing Hawai Chappal will also be able to use Hawai Jahaj.
Rail Budget 2018
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Union Budget 2018 speech announced a capital expenditure of Rs 1.48 lakh crore for Indian railways.
According to Jaitley most of this money will be spent on capacity expansion since that is the most important priority for railways right now. There is a target of doubling 18,000 km of lines and gauge conversion is underway to eliminate capacity constraints, FM Jaitley said for Railway Budget 2018.
Highlights of Rail Budget
Focus on safety first, maintenance of track infrastructure is being given special attention.
12,000 wagons, 5160 coaches and 700 locomotives being procured. There are significant achievements of physical targets by Railways.
All stations with more than 25,000 footfall will have escalators.
4267 unmanned railway crossing will be eliminated in next two years. All railway stations and trains will be provided WiFi and CCTVs progressively.
10 prominent tourist sites to be developed as iconic tourist spots.
Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations taken up; Mumbai transport system being expanded; the suburban network of 160 km planned for Bengaluru.
Foundation stone of the bullet train was laid in September 2017. An institute is coming up in Vadodara to train the manpower required for the high-speed railway projects.
Physical targets of Indian Railways is also improving. Work on dedicated freight corridors is on in full-swing – both east and west – announced FM Jaitley in the Railway Budget speech.
We have announced plans to set up a dedicated Railway University in Vadodara, said FM Arun Jaitley during his Union Budget 2018 speech.
70 lakh formal jobs have been created this year. Govt will contribute 12% of the wages as EPF in all sectors for the next three years. Contributions from women employees will be brought down from 12% to 8%.
AMRUT program to focus on water supply to all households in 500 cities. Water supply contracts for 494 projects worth 19,428 core awarded.
115 aspiration districts identified taking various indices of development into consideration, quality of life to be improved in these districts.
Technology will be the biggest driver in improving quality of education. We propose to increase the digital intensity in education and move gradually from blackboard to digital board.
National Health Protection Schemes to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. It will benefit 50 crore poor people. Rs. 5 lakh per family per year will be provided for poor families for hospital treatments.
Govt to increase digital intensity in education. Technology to be the biggest driver in improving quality of education.
By 2022, every block with more than 50% ST population will have an Eklavya Model Residential School.
Fishery and Aquaculture Development Fund and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund with a total corpus of Rs. 10,000 Crore will be set up.
Hardwork of farmers resulted in a record production of more than 275 million tonnes of food grain and about 300 million tonnes of horticultural produce.
Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of 1290 crore rupees to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.
India now a global success story because of direct transfer benefits that citizens have been provided with.
Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets.
I am very happy to announce that minimum support price has been set at 1.5 times the production cost for kharif crops: Finance Minister
Our economy is on course to achieve high growth rate of 8%. Economy to grow at 7.2-7.5% in second half of 2018-19: Finance Minister
FDI has gone up and it is easier to do business in India; Indian economy is now a 2.5 trillion economy: Finance Minister
The Direct Benefit Transfer scheme that we have undertaken is the biggest such exercise in the world and is a global success story: FM
Structural reforms undertaken by the NDA government will help Indian economy achieve strong growth in medium and long term: FM
As we have pointed out, increasing production is fine. The problem is getting farmers 50% profit margin on top of production costs.
PM Narendra Modi has always stressed on the importance of good governance. This vision has inspired Government agencies to carry out several reforms: FM
Indian economy is on course to achieve high growth of 8 %. Economy to grow at 7.2-7.5% in second half of 2018-19: FM Jaitley
Indian economy has performed very well since our Govt took over in may 2014, It is now the seventh largest in the world: FM Jaitley
The growth of the economy at 6.3% in second quarter signalled a turnaround in economy. We hope to target 7.2 to 7.5% growth: FM
This govt has ended policy paralysis. India was in fragile five group. Today, India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world: Finance Minister
Modi govt has successfully implemented series of structural reforms. FDI has gone up, measures brought have made business to be done easily. Indirect system has been made simpler: FM Arun Jaitley
When we took over, India was considered one of the fragile five. We have successfully reversed this, India now among the fastest growing economies in the world: Finance Minister
Jaitley rises to present the Budget 2018-19.
The Session begins. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan speaks. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will present the Budget shortly.