Highlights & Key points of Union Budget 2018
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Union Budget 2018 – Aspirants appearing for upcoming competitive exams can find the highlights of India Budget, Budget News & complete budget analysis of India.
Budget 2018 will focus on Agriculture and Rural Economy, Health, Infra, Senior Citizens
Agriculture
- Kisan credit card scheme to be extended to fisheries, animal husbandry farmers
- Export of agri goods to be liberalised
- Removal of crop residue to be subsidised in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue
- Loans to self help groups will increase to Rs 75,000 crore by March 2019
- Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for providing livelihood to rural India through infrastructure building
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.