An Overview Budget 2018

February 2, 2018 at 9:44 am by Editorial

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The government has announced the Budget 2018-19 with an aim to achieve high growth of 8% plus as manufacturing services and exports are back on a good growth path. While GDP growth at 6.3% in the second quarter of 2017-18 signalled the turnaround of the economy, the growth in the second half is likely to remain between 7.2% to 7.5%. The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley while presenting the General Budget 2018-19 said that Indian society, polity and economy had shown remarkable resilience in adjusting with structural reforms. It has been forecasted that India will grow at 7.4% next year in the backdrop of services resuming high growth rates of 8% plus, exports expected to grow at 15%.

Agriculture and Rural Economy

MSP for all unannounced kharif crops increased to one and half times of their production cost.
The volume of institutional credit for agriculture sector proposed at Rs.11 lakh crore for 2018-19.
Fisheries, aqua culture and animal husbandry sector development funds corpus set at Rs.10,000 crore.
Operation Greens was announced with an outlay of Rs 500 crore.
Development and upgradation of 22,000 rural haats.
Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs.2000 crore to be setup.
Rs 200 crore allocated for organized cultivation of specialized medicinal and aromatic plants and said that the organic farming.
Ministry of Food Processing doubled to Rs.1400 crore.
Agri-commodities to be liberalized.
Special scheme announced to address air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region.
Loans to Self Help Groups of women to increase to Rs.75,000 crore by March, 2019.
Allocation of National Rural Livelihood Mission increased to Rs 5750 crore.
Under Ujjwala Scheme distribution of free LPG connections to be given to 8 crore poor women.
Under Saubahagya Yojana, 4 crore poor households to provided with electricity connection with an outlay of Rs.16,000 crore.
Under Housing for All by 2022 ,more than one crore houses will be built by 2019 in rural areas.
Planned – employment of 321 crore person days, 3.17 lakh kilometers of rural roads, 51 lakh new rural houses, 1.88 crore toilets, and provide 1.75 crore new household electric connections.

Education, Health and Social Protection

Estimated budgetary expenditure on health, education and social protection is set at Rs.1.38 lakh crore.
Ekalavya Model Residential School for education of tribal children in their own environment by 2022.
Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022 initiative with a total investment of Rs.1,00,000 crore announced.
Allocation on National Social Assistance Programme kept at Rs. 9975 crore.
National Health Protection Scheme announced that will cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families.
Rs 1200 crore committed for the National Health Policy, 2017.
Rs.600 crore allocated to provide nutritional support to all TB patients
Government to set up 24 new Government Medical Colleges and Hospitals.
187 projects sanctioned under the Namami Gange programme at Rs.16,713 crore and 47 completed.
All 4465 Ganga Grams – villages on the bank of river – declared open defecation free.

Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) and Employment

Rs. 3794 crore provided for credit support, capital and interest subsidy and for innovations.
MUDRA Yojana leads to sanction of Rs.4.6 lakh crore in credit from 10.38 crore MUDRA loans. Target of Rs.3 lakh crore set for lending under MUDRA.
70 lakh formal jobs to be created this year.
Government to contribute 12% to new employees in the EPF for all the sectors for next three years.
Outlay of Rs.7148 crore proposed for the textile sector.

Infrastructure and Financial Sector Development

Increase of budgetary allocation on infrastructure for 2018-19 to Rs.5.97 lakh crore.
To boost tourism, development of 10 prominent tourist sites into Iconic Tourism proposed.
About 35000 km road construction in Phase-I at estimated cost of Rs.5,35,000 crore approved.

Railways

Railways Capital Expenditure set at Rs.1,48,528 crore.
4000 km of electrified railway network slated for commissioning.
Over 3600 km of track renewal is targeted during the current fiscal along with redevelopment of 600 major railway stations.
Mumbai’s local train network to have 90 km of double line tracks at a cost of over Rs.11,000 crore. 150 kilometers of additional suburban network being planned at a cost of over Rs.40,000 crore.
Suburban network of approximately 160 km at estimated cost of Rs.17,000 crore being planned to cater to the growth of Bengaluru.

Air Transport

Proposed expansion of airport capacity more than five times to handle a billion trips a year under NABH Nirman.
Under UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads to be connected.

Finance

The Finance Minister urged regulators to move from ‘AA’ to ‘A’ rating for investment eligibility.
Government to establish a unified authority for regulating all financial services in International Finance Service Centre (IFSCs) in India.

Digital Economy

NITI Aayog to initiate a national program to direct efforts in artificial intelligence.
Department of Science & Technology to launch a Mission on Cyber Physical Systems.
Allocation on Digital India programme doubled to Rs 3073 crore.
Five lakh wi-fi hotspots to provide net connectivity to five crore rural citizens proposed.
Rs. 10000 crore allocated for creation and augmentation of Telecom infrastructure.

Defence

Development of two defence industrial production corridors proposed.

Disinvestment

Disinvestment target of Rs.72,500 crore exceeded and expected receipts of Rs.1,00,000 crore.
Disinvestment target of Rs.80,000 crore set.
National Insurance Co. Ltd., United India Assurance Co. Ltd., and Oriental India insurance Co. Ltd., to be merged into a single insurance entity.
A comprehensive Gold Policy to be formulated to develop gold as an asset class.
Gold Monetization Scheme to be revamped to enable people to open a hassle-free Gold Deposit Account.
To revise emoluments to Rs.5 lakh for the President, Rs 4 lakhs for the Vice President and Rs.3.5 lakh per month to Governor.
Proposed necessary changes to refix the salary and allowances with effect from April 1, 2018.
To celebrate the 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi the Budget set aside Rs.150 crore for the activities leading to the commemoration programme.

Fiscal Management

Revised Estimates for expenditure at Rs.21.57 lakh crore.
Revised Fiscal Deficit estimates for 2017-18 put at Rs. 5.95 lakh crore at 3.5% of GDP.
Proposed acceptance of key recommendations of the Fiscal Reform and Budget Management Committee to bring down Central Government’s Debt to GDP ratio to 40%.
Proposed 100 percent deduction to companies registered as Farmer Producer Companies with an annual turnover upto Rs. 100 crore for a period of five years from financial year 2018-19.
No adjustment to be made in respect of transactions in immovable property, where the Circle Rate value does not exceed 5 percent of the consideration.
The Budget proposals seek to provide relief to salaried tax payers by allowing a Standard Deduction of Rs. 40,000.
Relief to Senior Citizens has also been proposed.
The Budget proposes to increase the cess on personal income tax and corporation tax to 4%.
Increase customs duty proposed on mobile phones from 15 percent to 20 percent, on some of their parts and accessories to 15 percent and on certain parts of televisions to 15 percent.
Customs duty is proposed to be reduced on raw cashew from 5 percent to 2.5 percent.
With the roll of GST, the Budget also proposes to change the name of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).