On Thursday, 1st February, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the budget 2018-19 at the Parliament in New Delhi. While there weren't any changes made in the personal income tax slab, MSME sector and the corporate tax saw a number of cuts.
This year's budget particularly focused on health and the Agriculture sector and the finance Minister also focused on loosening down on the fiscal deficit of the fresh financial year of the Government.
Fiscal Deficit: The target for the 2017-18 fiscal deficits which had been set earlier at 3.2% has gone up to 3.5% of the GDP. The recommendation of the NK Singh committee for 2018-19 has been set out to be 3.3 %.
The budget includes an announcement of a revamped national health protection scheme that will have a coverage of up to 5 Lakh rupees for every family every year for taking care of the secondary and tertiary hospitalization care and that is eligible for around 10 Crore families. Also, the Government in its budget promised to help with Minimum Support Price of at least one and a half of the actual production cost for all the kharif crops which are unannounced.
Spending on Agriculture: New 'Operation Green', Increase in credit targets, 1.5% times MSP for kharif crops, other policies addressing procurements, forecast and demand
Here is a gist of various aspect of the Union Budget 2018-19 announcements
- - In the budget announcement, the financial minister said that India is soon going to become the fifth largest economy of the World.
- - In 2018, export will be growing to 15 %.
- - The Government will be setting up a fund of 2,000 Crore for making developments in the agriculture markets.
- - The Government had decided to develop 22,000 Gramin agricultural markets.
- - For boosting up the agricultural production, the Government will be adopting the cluster-model approach.
- - 1400 crore has been allocated to the food production sector.
- - Government will be allocating Rs 500 crore for taking up for 'Operation Green'.
- - An agricultural corpus of 2000 crore has been set up.
- - A total corpus of 10000 crore has been set up in order to develop the animal husbandry, fishery and aquaculture development.
- - 8 Crore women will be given free LPG connection.
- - The Ujjawala Yojana has been extended to 8 crore households which is dedicated to providing free LPG connections.
- - It is proposed that, additional two crore toilets will be built in the coming two years whereas around six crore toilets have already been built.
- - Under the Saubhagya Yojana, 4 crore electricity connection will be provided to the poor families.
- - The Kisan credit card will be extended to farmers, animal husbandry and fisheries
- - An affordable housing fund too will be established.
- - The loan amount dedicated to the self help groups has been increased to 75,000 crore.
- - RS 5,750 crore and Rs 2,600 crore has been dedicated to the National Livelihood Mission and the groundwater irrigation scheme respectively.
- - Government proposed to build 24 new medical colleges.
- - There will be an initiation of a B.Ed programme for teachers.
- - By next year the Government will be launching the Revitalising of Infrastructure and Systems of Education (RISE).
- - Government had proposed to open 18 new architecture and planning schools in the NITs and IITs.
- - TB patients will be given a nutritional support of 600 crore.
- - The Government had allocated a sum of RS 1200 crore for wellness and the health centers.
- - The previously implemented scheme called Jan Dhan Yojana will be extended to 60 crore bank accounts.
- - The Government also proposed in its union budget that by the year 2022, every block having ST population of above 50 % and at least 20,000 tribal population will be equipped with 'Ekalavya' schools which will be at par with 'Navodaya Vidyalas'.
- - Rs 3 crore has been dedicated to the PM's MUDRA Yojana in the year 2019.
- - Textile sector had been allocated a sum of Rs. 7148 crore.
- - A new scheme for Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan (GOBARDHAN) will be launched.
- - A budget of 2.04 lakh crores, under the Smart city scheme, 99 cities have selected.
- - The Government had proposed to develop 10 tourist cities into iconic tourist destination.
- - 600 Railway stations will be redeveloped.
- - It is targeted to renovate above 3600 railway tracks.
Pollution in Delhi-NCR
There was a special mention of the pollution level in Delhi in the budget speech this year. There will be introduction of a new scheme to help the Punjab and Haryana Government to subsidize the cost of machineries required for harvesting crops. This will help in the prevention of the burning of the crop stubble which contributes majorly to the level of pollution in Delhi.
Railway Budget
- - There will be an elimination of 4000 plus unmanned crossings and that they will be replaced with new and state-of-the-art amenities.
- - An institute is coming up in Vadodara for giving training to people for the bullet train project but most of the work on it will be done by Japanese.
- - The railway capital expenditure is set out at 1.48 Lakh Crores.
- - All the trains and railway stations will be equipped with wifi.
- - There will be elimination of the capacity constraints by doubling of the railway tracks to 18,000 kms.
- - The country is doing everything for the electrification of the Railway system.
- - The Government is targeting to renew more than 3600 km of railway tracks.
