Reblog: Union Budget 2018: Key takeaways and sector-wise highlights


New Delhi: 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.

While a budget covers a plethora of items and heads, the mix can leave a lot of people confused. This budget is rendered all the more important as there are elections coming up in eight states this year and the Lok Sabha election next year, all of which put tough demands on the Finance Minister.

India is the world’s fastest-growing economy, said the Finance Minister as he announced the Budget. He lauded the govt’s moves to contain black money and encourage tax formalisation. Batting for GST, he said it ensured tax simplicity, demonetisation paved the way for a digital economy.

“When the Narendra Modi government took over, India was considered to be one of the fragile five economies of the world. Our government reversed the trend,” Jaitley said.

How has Jaitley managed to balance populist demands while also catering to the need to support economic growth and follow PM Modi’s focus on fiscal discipline and reforms?

Here are the key highlights from the Union Budget 2018:

Economic Health

  • Economy firmly on course to achieve high growth of 8%
  • Manufacturing, services, and exports are back on good growth path
  • 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%  

Budget 2018: Agri and Rural spending

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
  • Plan for employment of 321 crore person days, 3.17 lakh kilometers of rural roads, 51 lakh new rural houses, 1.88 crore toilets, and 1.75 crore new household electric connections

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
  • World’s largest government-funded health care programme titled National Health Protection Scheme announced
  • 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
  • Clean Ganga: Of 187 projects have been sanctioned, 47 complete
  • Banks of Ganga declared open defecation free

Budget 2018: MSMEs and Employment

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

Budget 2018: Air transport

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

Budget 2018: Digital Economy

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.

Budger 2018: Disinvestment and Gold

Disinvestment & Gold

  • Disinvestment target of Rs.72,500 crore exceeded; expected receipts of Rs.1,00,000 crore
  • New disinvestment target of Rs.80,000 crore for 2018-19
  • National Insurance Co. Ltd., United India Assurance Co. Ltd. & Oriental India Insurance Co. Ltd. to be merged into a single entity
  • Comprehensive Gold Policy to be formulated to develop gold as an asset class
  • To establish a system of consumer-friendly and trade efficient system of regulated gold exchanges in the country
  • Gold Monetization Scheme to be revamped to enable people to open a hassle-free Gold Deposit Account

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%

Taxation – Corporate / Personal / Customs Duty 

  • Growth of direct taxes in 2016-17 at 12.6 percent & for the financial year 2017-18 (up to 15th January 2018) at 18.7 percent
  • Additional revenue collected from personal income tax totals Rs. 90,000 crore
  • No. of Effective Tax Payers increased to 8.27 crore
  • 100% deduction to companies registered as Farmer Producer Companies with an annual turnover up to Rs. 100 crore
  • Real estate sector – no adjustment to be made for transactions in immovable property where Circle Rate value does not exceed 5% of the consideration
  • Reduced Corporate Tax of 25 % extended to companies with turnover up to Rs. 250 crore
  • No change in personal Income-Tax slabs
  • Standard Deduction of Rs. 40,000 in place of the present exemption allowed for transport allowance and reimbursement of miscellaneous medical expenses
  • Transport allowance at enhanced rate is proposed to be continued for differently abled persons
  • Increase in education and health cess on personal income tax and corporation tax to 4 %
  • More concessions for International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) to promote trade
  • IFSC concessions propose transfer of derivatives and certain securities by non- residents from capital gains tax, and non-corporate taxpayers operating in IFSC to be charged Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) at concessional rate of 9 percent at par with Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) applicable for corporates
  • Payments exceeding Rs. 10,000 in cash made by trusts and institutions to be disallowed
  • Long-Term Capital Gains (LTCG) to be rationalised
  • Proposal to tax 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 to be grandfathered
  • To introduce a tax on distributed income by equity-oriented mutual funds at the rate of 10%
  • Customs Duty on mobile phones increased to 20%
  • Customs Duty on certain parts of televisions increased to 15 %

 Relief to Senior Citizens

  • Exemption of interest income on deposits with banks and post offices are proposed to be increased from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000
  • TDS shall not be required to be deducted under section 194A
  • Benefit will also be 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 increased to Rs. 1 lakh under section 80DDB

The original article appears on timesnownews.com and is available here.

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