repeart Budget

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley delivered the current government's fifth and last full financial budget (Budget 2018 for the fiscal year 2018-19) amid subdued economic growth, challenging fiscal situation and farm distress.

Here are the key highlights from the Union Budget 2018:

Economic Health

• Economy firmly on course to achieve high growth of 8%
• GDP growth at 6. 3% in the second quarter of 2017-18 signals turnaround of the economy
• Growth in the second half likely to remain between 7. 2% to 7. 5%

Agriculture and Rural Economy

• MSP  for all unannounced Kharif  crops increased to 150%

• Institutional credit for agri-sector increased to Rs. 10 lakh crore in 2017-18

• Fisheries, aquaculture and animal husbandry corpus at Rs. 10,000 crore

• New scheme Operation Greens with an outlay of Rs 500 Crore

• Govt to develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats

• Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore

• Allocation for Ministry of Food Processing doubled to Rs. 1400 crore

• Loans to Self Help Groups (SHG) of women to increase to Rs. 75,000 crore by March 2019.

• Increased allocation of National Rural Livelihood Mission to Rs 5750 crore

• Under Ujjwala Scheme distribution of free LPG connections will be given to 8 crore poor women

• Housing for All by 2022 - more than one crore houses to be built by 2019 in rural areas

Education, Health, and Social Protection

• Estimated budgetary expenditure on health, education and social protection at Rs. 1. 38 lakh crore

• Ekalavya Model Residential School to be set up for tribal children

• Investments for research & infra in premier educational institutions at Rs. 1 lakh crore in next 4 years

• Allocation on National Social Assistance Programme at Rs. 9975 crore

• NHPS to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries)

• NHPS to provide coverage up to 5 lakh rupees per family per year for hospitalisation

• Rs 1200 crore for the National Health Policy, 2017 - additional Rs. 600 crore for TB patients

• 24 new Government Medical Colleges and Hospitals

Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) and Employment

• Major thrust for Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) – allocation at Rs. 3794 crore

• Target of Rs. 3 lakh crore for lending under MUDRA Yojana

• 70 lakh formal jobs to be created this year

• Govt to make 12% contribution of new employees in the EPF for all the sectors for 3 years

• Outlay of Rs. 7148 crore for the textile sector

• Increase budgetary allocation on infrastructure for at Rs. 5. 97 lakh crore

• To develop 10 prominent tourist sites into Iconic Tourism destinations

• 35000 kms road construction in Phase-I at an estimated cost of Rs. 5,35,000 crore

Railways

• Railways Capital Expenditure pegged at Rs. 1,48,528 crore

• 4000 kilometers of electrified railway network slated for commissioning

• Work on Eastern and Western, dedicated freight corridors

• Over 3600 km of track renewal targeted in current fiscal

• Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations

• Mumbai’s local train network to have 90 kilometers of double line tracks at Rs. 11,000 crore cost

• 150 km of additional suburban network planned for Mumbai

• Suburban network of 160 km at for Bengaluru metropolis

Air Transport

• To expand airport capacity more than five times to handle a billion trips a year

• Regional connectivity - 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads to be connected

• To establish unified authority for regulating all financial services

Digital Economy

• NITI Aayog to initiate a national program to direct efforts in artificial intelligence

• Department of Science & Technology to launch Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems

• Allocation doubled on Digital India programme to Rs 3073 crore

• To set up 5 lakh wifi hotspots to provide net-connectivity to five crore rural citizens

• Rs. 10000 crore for creation and augmentation of telecom infrastructure

Defence

• Development of two defence industrial production corridors.

• Allocation of Rs 2. 95 lakh crore to defence sector.

Emoluments

• To revise emoluments to Rs. 5 lakh for the President

• Rs 4 lakhs for the Vice President

• Rs. 3. 5 lakh per month to Governor

• Pay for Members of Parliament - law for automatic revision of emoluments every 5 years

• 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi- Rs. 150 crore for commemoration programme

Fiscal Management

• Budget Revised Estimates for Expenditure at Rs. 21. 57 lakh crore

• Revised Fiscal Deficit estimates at 3. 5% of GDP

• To bring down Central Government’s Debt to GDP ratio to 40%

Courtesy: Times Now