Has Arun Jaitley failed to deliver a successful Budget 2018? Main takeaways
Nearly four years into the NDA administration's tenure, finance minister Arun Jaitley rose to present Narendra Modi government's last full Budget Budget amid a host of challenges, including creating jobs, boosting growth, and alleviating agricultural distress. Despite the challenges, Jaitley exuded confidence that the economy is on the path of over 8 per cent growth rate.
"The economy will grow at 7.2-7.5 per cent in the second half of 2018-19, and will become the fifth largest global economy soon," he said.
Clarifying his government's focus, the finance minister said that the ruling regime is focused on infrastructure creation, higher farmers' income and economic reforms.
On the agrarian front
As expected, Jaitley said, "This year's Budget...will focus on strengthening of strengthening agriculture and rural economy."
He announced that the minimum support price (MSP) has been set at 1.5 times the production cost for kharif crops. The finance minister said this measure would go a long way to realise the government's goal of doubling farmers' income by 2022.
He said an Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore would be created. He also announced a 100 per cent tax rebate for farm equipment producing companies with a turnover of Rs 100 crore.
No tax relief for salaried employees
Jaitley said he didn't want to change personal income tax rates that are applicable to individuals as the government had already made "many positive changes" on the front in the last three years.
However, salaried people will get a standard deduction of Rs 40,000 from their taxable income, besides other exemptions already allowed.
Jaitley said the taxpayer base rose to 8.27 crore in 2016-17, from 6.47 crore in 2014-15. However, he said, while more payers were joining the tax net, the turnover was not encouraging.
EPF
Jaitley said the government will contribute 12 per cent to the Employee's Provident Fund (EPF) for three years for new employees.
Delhi air
The issue of the national capital's air quality turning poisonous also figured in Jaitley's speech. He announced a special scheme to help the governments of Haryana, Punjab and Delhi tackle the problem, and subsidise machinery for crop residue management.
SC/ST welfare
Jaitley announced allocation of Rs 56,619 crore for the welfare of scheduled castes, and Rs 39,135 crore for that of scheduled tribes.
Healthcare
Jaitley announced a flagship National Health Insurance scheme which will cover around 10 crore "vulnerable" families. The health coverage of the scheme will be up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation. There will 50 crore beneficiaries, he said. Also, Rs 600 crore will be allocated for the nutritional support of the patients.
New educational institutions
The finance minister announced the setting up of two full-fledged schools of architecture and planning, and 24 new government medical colleges and hospitals.
Appraisals
Jaitley's speech read out appraisals for president, vice-president, and governors.
"The emoluments are proposed to be increased to Rs 5 lakh for the president, Rs 4 lakh for the vice-president, and Rs 3.5 lakh for the governors," the finance minister said.
For lawmakers, Jaitley proposed changes in the re-fixing of MPs' salaries. The law will provide for the automatic revision of emoluments - indexed to inflation - every 5 years.
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