Highlights of Budget 2018-19
• Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley presents general Budget 2018-19 in Parliament.
• Budget guided by mission to strengthen agriculture, rural development, health, education, employment, MSME and infrastructure sectors.
• MSP for all unannounced kharif crops will be one and half times of their production cost like majority of rabi crops: Institutional Farm Credit raised to 11 lakh crore in 2018-19 from 8.5 lakh crore in 2014-15.
• 22,000 rural haats to be developed and upgraded into Gramin Agricultural Markets to protect the interests of 86% small and marginal farmers.
• “Operation Greens” launched to address price fluctuations in potato, tomato and onion for benefit of farmers and consumers.
• Two New Funds of Rs10,000 crore announced for Fisheries and Animal Husbandary sectors; Re-structured National Bamboo Mission gets Rs.1290 crore.
• Loans to Women Self Help Groups will increase to Rs.75,000 crore in 2019 from 42,500 crore last year.
• Higher targets for Ujjwala, Saubhagya and Swachh Mission to cater to lower and middle class in providing free LPG connections, electricity and toilets.
• Outlay on health, education and social protection will be 1.38 lakh crore. Tribal students to get Ekalavya Residential School in each tribal block by 2022. Welfare fund for SCs gets a boost.
• World’s largest Health Protection Scheme covering over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families launched with a family limit upto 5 lakh rupees for secondary and tertiary treatment.
• Fiscal Deficit pegged at 3.5 %, projected at 3.3 % for 2018-19. • Rs. 5.97 lakh crore allocation for infrastructure
• Ten prominent sites to be developed as Iconic tourist destinations
• NITI Aayog to initiate a national programme on Artificial Intelligence(AI)
• Centres of excellence to be set up on robotics, AI, Internet of things etc
• Disinvestment crossed target of Rs 72,500 crore to reach Rs 1,00,000 crore
• Comprehensive Gold Policy on the anvil to develop yellow metal as an asset class
• 100 percent deduction proposed to companies registered as Farmer Producer Companies with an annual turnover upto Rs. 100 crore on profit derived from such activities, for five years from 2018-19.
• Deduction of 30 percent on emoluments paid to new employees Under Section 80-JJAA to be relaxed to 150 days for footwear and leather industry, to create more employment.
• No adjustment in respect of transactions in immovable property where Circle Rate value does not exceed 5 percent of consideration.
• Proposal to extend reduced rate of 25 percent currently available for companies with turnover of less than 50 crore (in Financial Year 2015-16), to companies reporting turnover up to Rs. 250 crore in Financial Year 2016-17, to benefit micro, small and medium enterprises.
• Standard Deduction of Rs. 40,000 in place of present exemption for transport allowance and reimbursement of miscellaneous medical expenses. 2.5 crore salaried employees and pensioners to benefit.
• Relief to Senior Citizens proposed:-
• Exemption of interest income on deposits with banks and post offices to be increased from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000.
• TDS not required to be deducted under section 194A. Benefit also available for interest from all fixed deposit schemes and recurring deposit schemes.
• Hike in deduction limit for health insurance premium and/ or medical expenditure from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 50,000 under section 80D.
• Increase in deduction limit for medical expenditure for certain critical illness from Rs. 60,000 (in case of senior citizens) and from Rs. 80,000 (in case of very senior citizens) to Rs. 1 lakh for all senior citizens, under section 80DDB.
• Proposed to extend Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana up to March, 2020. Current investment limit proposed to be increased to Rs. 15 lakh from the existing limit of Rs. 7.5 lakh per senior citizen.
• More concessions for International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), to promote trade in stock exchanges located in IFSC.
• To control cash economy, payments exceeding Rs. 10,000 in cash made by trusts and institutions to be disallowed and would be subject to tax.
• Tax on Long Term Capital Gains exceeding Rs. 1 lakh at the rate of 10 percent, without allowing any indexation benefit. However, all gains up to 31st January, 2018 will be grandfathered.
• Proposal to introduce tax on distributed income by equity oriented mutual funds at the rate of 10 percent.
• Proposal to increase cess on personal income tax and corporation tax to 4 percent from present 3 percent.
• Proposal to roll out E-assessment across the country to almost eliminate person to person contact leading to greater efficiency and transparency in direct tax collection.
• Proposed changes in customs duty to promote creation of more jobs in the country and also to incentivise domestic value addition and Make in India in sectors such as food processing, electronics, auto components, footwear and furniture. Doubling farmers’ Income
• The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley, told that “Our emphasis is on generating higher incomes for farmers. We consider agriculture as an enterprise and want to help farmers produce more from the same land parcel at lesser cost and simultaneously realize higher prices for their produce”.
• Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all hitherto unannounced crops of Kharif at least at one and half times of their production cost.
• As a primary measure, the Government announced raising institutional credit for agriculture sector to Rs.11 lakh crore for the year 2018-19 from Rs.10 lakh crore in 2017-18.
• Launching of ‘Operation Greens’ to address price volatility of perishable commodities like potatoes, tomatoes and onions, at an outlay of Rs. 500 crore.
• ‘Operation Greens’, on the lines of ‘Operation Flood’, shall promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management in the sector.
• 100% deduction in respect of profits to Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), having turnover up to Rs. 100 crore, for a period of 5 years from FY 2018-19, in order to encourage professionalism in post harvest value addition in agriculture. •
Development and up gradation of existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs)
• In these GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGA and other Government Schemes and would be electronically linked to e-NAM and exempted from regulations of APMCs. This would provide farmers facility to make direct sale to consumers and bulk purchasers.
• Setting up of a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry sector. Total Corpus of these two new Funds would be Rs.10,000 crore.
• Calling Bamboo as ‘Green Gold’, Shri Jaitley announced the launch of the Rs.1290-crore Re-structured National Bamboo Mission, which is based on a cluster based approach to address the complete bamboo value chain and promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner. Gobar-Dhan Scheme
• In an effort to make the villages open defecation free and improving the lives of villagers, the Finance Minister in his budget speech today announced the launch of Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan (GOBAR-DHAN).
• This will manage and convert cattle dung and solid waste in farms to compost, bio-gas and bio-CNG. Ayushman Bharat for a new India -2022
• The Government today announced two major initiatives in health sector, as part of Ayushman Bharat programme. The initiatives are as follows:-
Health and Wellness Centre:-
• The National Health Policy, 2017 has envisioned Health and Wellness Centres as the foundation of India’s health system.
• Under this 1.5 lakh centres will bring health care system closer to the homes of people.
• These centres will provide comprehensive health care, including for non-communicable diseases and maternal and child health services.
• These centres will also provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services.
• The Budget has allocated Rs.1200 crore for this flagship programme.
National Health Protection Scheme:-
• It will cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage upto 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
• This will be the world’s largest government funded health care programme. Adequate funds will be provided for smooth implementation of this programme. Railway’s Capex for the year 2018-19 Pegged at Rs.1,48,528 Crore
• In keeping with the Government’s focus on strengthening the Railways network in the country the General Budget 2018-19 has enhanced the allocation for the Ministry.
• Railways’ Capex for the year 2018-19 has been pegged at Rs.1,48,528 crore. A large part of this will be devoted to capacity creation.
• 18,000 kilometers of doubling, third and fourth line works and 5000 kilometers of gauge conversion would augment capacity and transform almost the entire network into Broad Gauge.
• There will be increasing use of technology like ‘‘Fog Safe’’ and ‘‘Train Protection and Warning System’’. 4267 unmanned level crossings in the broad gauge network will be eliminated in the next two years.
• Modern train-sets with the state-of-the-art amenities and features are being designed at Integrated Coach Factory, Perambur. First such train-set will be commissioned during 2018-19.
• Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations is being taken up by Indian Railway Station Development Co. Ltd. All stations with more than 25000 footfalls will have escalators.
• In Bengaluru, a suburban network of approximately 160 kilometers at an estimated cost of Rs.17,000 crore is being planned to cater to the growth of the metropoli
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