Key highlights of Arun Jaitley’s Budget 2018

Key highlights of Arun Jaitley’s Budget 2018:

Tax Proposal

• No change in personal income tax rates. Made many positive changes in personal income tax rates in the past years, no change in Income Tax slabs this year: Jaitley.
• Standard deduction on salary reintroduced. A standard deduction of upto Rs 40,000 will be available. Standard deduction had been withdrawn in 2005-06 Budget.
• All senior citizens can claim benefit of reduction Rs 50,000 per year with reference to any general health expenditure and health insurance premium.
• Tax growth rate of 12.6 per cent in direct taxes was in current year and till January 15, it was 18.7 per cent.
• Demonetisation was received by honest tax-payers as ‘Imaandari ka Utsav’
  Tax buoyancy more than expected, thanks to greater compliance: Jaitley
• Budget 2018 aims to lower central government debt-to-GDP ratio to 40 per cent
  Hundred per cent tax deduction for first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs 100 crore and above.
• Company having recorded annual turnover upto Rs 250 crore will be taxed at 25 per cent
• Education cess upped by one percent income tax. A cess of 4 per cent to replace that of 3 per cent was proposed in Union Budget 2018.
• Budget 2018 levied social welfare surcharge at 3-10 per cent on imports.
• The Education Cess and Secondary and Higher Education Cess on imported goods was abolished.
• New Rs 8 per litre infra-cess on imported petroleum products (petrol, disele).
• But it will not lead to increase in oil prices as Budget 2018 proposed to abolish a cess of Rs 6 per litre and reduced basic excise duty by Rs 2 per litre.

Broad Economy

• When we took over, India was considered one of the fragile five. We have successfully reversed this, India now among the fastest growing economies in the world: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
• FDI has gone up and it is easier to do business in India. Indian economy is now a 2.5 trillion economy.
• We are not only focusing on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ but also on ‘Ease of Living’, said Jaitley.
• Government has successfully implemented series of structural reforms as a result of which India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world.
• We hope to grow at 7.2 per cent – 7.5 per cent in second half of 2017-18. We are on track to grow at 8 per cent and good governance is our priority: FM
• From ease of doing business, our government has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class.
• Mass formalization of MSME sector is happening after demonetization and GST.
• Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target for 2018-19; target for 2017-18 exceeded and will reach Rs 1 lakh crore
• Govt does not consider crypto-currency as legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate its use in financing illegitimate activities.
• Revised fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 is 3.5 per cent of GDP, fiscal deficit of 3.3 per cent expected for 2018-19.

Jobs

• Target of 3 lakh crore for lending under PM MUDRA Yojana: Jaitley
• Government will contribute 12 per cent of wages of new employees in EPF for all sectors for the next 3 years.
• Seventy lakh formal jobs have been created this year.
• Government will contribute 12 per cent of the wages as EPF in all sectors for the next three years.
• Contributions from women employees will be brought down from 12 per cent to 8 per cent.

Agriculture

• Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets
• Four-hundred-seventy APMCs have been connected to eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018.
• The Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost
• I am very happy to announce that minimum support price has been set at 1.5 times the production cost for kharif crops: Jaitley
• Union Budget 2018 proposes to raise institutional credit for agriculture to Rs 11 Lakh Crore for 2018-19.
• Government proposes to launch ‘Operation Greens’ on the lines of ‘Operation Flood’.
• Hardwork of farmers resulted in a record production of more than 275 million tonnes of food grain and about 300 million tonnes of horticultural produce: FM
• Government will subsidise removal of crop residue to tackle problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue
• Government will set up fishery and aquaculture infrastructure fund; also to set up animal husbandry infrastructure fund with a total corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore: FM
• Bamboo is green gold. Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of Rs 1290 crore: Finance Minister

Social Security

• Ujjwala Yojana helped millions of poor get free LPG connection: Jaitley
• Government plans to construct 2 crore more toilets under swachh bharat mission
• By 2022, every block with more than 50per cent ST population and at least 20,000 tribal people will have ‘Ekalavya’ school at par with Navodaya Vidyalas:
• Government to substantially increase allocation under national livelihood mission to Rs 5,750 crore in next fiscal; focus will be on providing maximum livelihood projects in rural areas.
• Rs 16,000 crore to be spent on providing electricity connection to 4 crore poor households
• PM Awaas Yojana: Dedicated Affordable Housing Fund will be set up to fund the housing for poor people.
• Seventy-six per cent of loan accounts are of women and more than 50per cent belong to SC, ST and OBC under the Mudra Yojana. Rs 3 lakh crore will be lent under Mudra Yojana in 2018-19

Manufacturing

• Manufacturing sector is back on growth path; Exports are expected to grow by 15 per cent in 2017-18

Health

• The government is slowly but steadily progressing towards universal health coverage.
• Providing Rs 5 lakh per family per year for medical reimbursement, under National Health Protection Scheme. This will be world’s largest health protection scheme: Jaitley
• The government has decided to take healthcare protection to a new aspirational level.
• The government will launch a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, benefiting approximately 50 crore people
• Ayushman Bharat Program for addressing health care holistically. 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres will be set up to provide diagnostic services and free essential drugs.

Railways

• Rs 1,48,528 crore has been earmarked as the capital expenditure for Indian Railways for 2018-19
• All trains to be progressively provided with WiFi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities
• Renewal of 3600 KM long railway tracks will be undertaken. 600 modern stations will be constructed.
• Union Budget 2018 set a target to eliminate 4,267 unmanned rail crossings at broad gauge network
• Budget 2018 proposes to construct 150 kms of rail subarban network in next fiscal with a cost of Rs 11,000 crores
• Foundation stone of the bullet train was laid in September 2017. An institute is coming up in Vadodara to train the manpower required for the high speed railway projects’
• 12,000 wagons, 5160 coaches and 700 locomotives are being procured. There is a significant achievement of physical targets by Railways

What Else

• Emoluments of President have been revised to Rs 5 lakh per month and emoluments of Vice-president to be revised to Rs 4 lakh per month.
• New law to provide automatic revision of emoluments indexed to inflation for MPs, says FM Arun Jaitley
• Air Pollution in Delhi NCR is a cause for concern, special scheme will be implemented to support Govts of Haryana, Punjab, UP and Delhi NCT to address it and subsidize machinery for management of crop residue
• One government medical college to be ensured for every 3 parliamentary constituencies by upgrading 24 district-level colleges.
• Scheme for revitalizing school infrastructure, with an allocation of 1 lakh crore rupees over four years. Called RISE – Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education
• Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population
• Integrated BEd programme to be initiated for teachers, to improve quality of teachers
• Custom duty on mobile phones increased from 15 to 20 per cent.