Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presents the Budget for 2018-19 in Parliament on Thursday.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
Following are the highlights of his speech:
- No change in personal income tax slabs and rates;
- Surcharge of 10% on income above Rs 50 lakh but less than Rs 1 cr, 15% on income above Rs 1 cr to continue;
- Standard Deduction returns after a decade; Rs 40,000 to be allowed in lieu of transport allowance and medical expenses;
- Economic growth pegged at 7.2-7.5% for H2 FY18;
- India's average growth in first 3-year of NDA govt 7.5%;
- Indian economy size $2.5 trillion; 7th largest in world;
- India is expected to be 5th largest economy very soon;
- Revised Fiscal Deficit estimate for 2017-18 is Rs 5.95 lakh crore at 3.5% of GDP;
- Fiscal Deficit for FY'19 estimated at 3.3% of GDP;
- Govt's market borrowing estimated at Rs 4.07 lakh cr in FY'19 versus Rs 4.79 lakh cr estimated in 2017-18;
- MSP of all kharif crops to be hiked to at least 1.5 times of their production cost;
- Institutional mechanism proposed to develop policies and practices for price and demand forecast;
- Rs 2,000 cr fund for developing and upgrading agri marketing infra in 22,000 Grameen Agri Markets and 585 APMCs;
- Allocation for food processing ministry doubled from Rs 715 cr in RE FY'18 to Rs 1,400 cr in BE FY'19;
- Kisan Credit Cards extended to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers;
- Agriculture credit disbursal target increased to Rs 11 lakh crore from Rs 10 lakh crore in 2017-18;
- Steps announced to deal with air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region;
- 2 crore more toilets to be built under Swachh Bharat Mission;
- Substantial increase in allocation of National Rural Livelihood Mission to Rs 5,750 cr in FY'19;
- Govt announced 2 major initiatives under 'Ayushman Bharat' programme;
- Govt to launch a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover over 10 cr poor families providing coverage up to Rs 5 lakh per family every year for hospitalisation;
- Govt earmarks Rs 56,619 cr for SCs and Rs 39,135 cr for STs in FY'19;
- Sets target of Rs 3 lakh crore for lending under MUDRA;
- Govt to contribute 12% of wages of the new employees in EPF for all sectors for 3 years;
- Facility of fixed-term employment will be extended to all sectors;
- Outlay of Rs 7,148 cr for textiles sector in 2018-19;
- FinMin to leverage India Infrastructure Finance Corporation to help finance major infrastructure projects;
- Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations being taken up;
- Suburban network of 160 kms in Mumbai at an estimated cost of Rs 17,000 cr being planned;
- Gross budgetary support for Railways hiked to over Rs 3 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 2.73 lakh crore in 2017-18;
- Plans to expand airport capacity more than 5 times to handle a billion trips a year;
- Sebi to consider mandating, beginning with large firms, to meet about 1/4th of their financing needs from bond market;
- Allocation on Digital India scheme doubled to Rs 3,073 cr;
- Rs 10,000 cr for creation and augmentation of telecom infra;
- Government to come out with policy to introduce toll system on 'pay as you use' basis;
- Proposed expenditure on infra pegged at Rs 5.97 lakh cr as against Rs 4.94 lakh crore in FY'18;
- Govt to evolve a scheme to assign enterprise a unique ID;
- Capital of the FCI will be restructured to enhance equity and to raise long-term debt;
- DIPAM will come up with more ETF offers including debt ETF;
- Divestment target for FY'19 at Rs 80,000 cr;
- Bank recapitalisation to pave way for PSBs to lend additional credit of Rs 5 lakh crore;
- Govt to formulate a 'Gold Policy' to develop gold as an asset class;
- Emoluments of President revised to Rs 5 lakh/month, Rs 4 lakh for vice president and Rs 3.5 lakh for Governors;
- Govt proposes changes to refix salary, constituency allowance, office expenses and allowance payable to Members of Parliament;
- The law will also provide for automatic revision of emoluments of MPs every five years indexed to inflation;
- Rs 150 cr earmarked for FY'19 for the activities leading to Commemoration of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi;
- Growth in direct taxes up to Jan 15, 2018 is 18.7%;
- Corporate tax reduced to 25% for firms with turnover of Rs 250 cr in 2016-17;
- Interest income exemption on deposits with banks and post offices for senior citizens increased from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000;
- Senior citizens will be able to claim benefit of deduction up to Rs 50,000 annually on health insurance premium and/or general medical expenditure incurred;
- Govt introduces long-term capital gains on equity market; long-term capital gains over Rs 100,000 to be taxed at 10%;
- Education cess increased to 4% from 3%;
- E-assessment of Income Tax Act to eliminate person-to-person contact;
- Customs duty on mobile phones increased from 15% to 20%; also on certain parts of TVs to 15%;
- Govt makes PAN mandatory for any entity entering into a financial transaction of Rs 2.5 lakh or more;
- Food subsidy to rise to Rs 1.69 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 1.4 lakh crore in current year;
- Defence outlay raised to Rs 2.82 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 2.67 lakh crore in current year;
- Customs duty on crude edible vegetable oils hiked from 12.5% to 30%; on refined edible vegetable oil from 20% to 35%;
- Customs duty on perfumes, dental hygiene, after-shave, deodorants, room deodorisers, preparations for use on hair doubled to 20%.
