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<strong>The</strong> International News Weekly india<br />
February 02, 2018 | Toronto<br />
11<br />
Arun Jaitley unveils Budget<br />
2018 aiming faster growth<br />
<strong>The</strong> Modi government said on Thursday that it expected economic growth to surge above 8 percent as it announced a 2018/19 budget<br />
that allocated billions of dollars for rural infrastructure and unveiled a health insurance programme for around 500 million poor.<br />
Budget Highlights<br />
• Education and health cess to be increased from 3 per cent to 4 per cent<br />
• Standard deduction of Rs 40,000 introduced in lieu of transport and medical reimbursements<br />
for salaried employees<br />
• All senior citizens can claim benefit of reduction Rs 50,000 year for any general health<br />
expenditure and health insurance premium<br />
• Exemption of interest income on bank deposits raised to Rs 50,000 for senior citizens<br />
• Long-term capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh to be taxed at 10 per cent<br />
• Electronic IT assessment will be rolled out across the country, leading to greater efficiency<br />
and transparency<br />
• No change in personal income tax rates for salaried class<br />
• Tax buoyancy more than expected, thanks to greater compliance<br />
• Demonetisation was received by honest tax-payers as 'Imaandari ka Utsav'<br />
• Measures on rationalising long-term capital gains<br />
• Companies with turnover of upto Rs 250 crore to be taxed at 25 per cent<br />
• Government has identified 372 specific business reform actions to improve ease of doing<br />
business; Evaluation of performance under this programme to be based on user<br />
feedback<br />
• Revised fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 is 3.5 per cent of GDP, fiscal deficit of 3.3 per<br />
cent expected for 2018-19<br />
• 12.6 per cent growth in direct taxes in 2017-18; 18.7 per cent growth in indirect taxes in<br />
2017-18<br />
• 100 per cent tax deduction for the first five years to companies registered as farmer<br />
producer companies with a turnover of Rs 100 crore and above<br />
• Revised emoluments for President - Rs 5 lakh, Vice President - Rs 4 lakh and Governors<br />
- Rs 3.5 lakh; Automatic revision of MPs' emoluments every five years, indexed to inflation<br />
• UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme will connect 56 unserved airports and 31<br />
unserved helipads<br />
• Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target for 2018-19, target for 2017-18 has been exceeded and<br />
will reach Rs 1 lakh crore<br />
• Government insurance companies to be merged into a single entity, and subsequently<br />
listed in the stock exchange, as part of the disinvestment programme<br />
• National Logistics Portal as a single online window to link all stakeholders, to be developed<br />
by Department of Commerce<br />
• Foundation stone of the bullet train was laid in September 2017. An institute is coming<br />
up in Vadodara to train the manpower required for the high speed railway projects<br />
• 12,000 wagons, 5160 coaches and 700 locomotives being procured. <strong>The</strong>re is significant<br />
achievements of physical targets by railways<br />
• Road construction has scaled new heights, confident that 9000 km highway construction<br />
will be complete by 2017-18<br />
• National Committee chaired by PM, including CMs, Gandhians and representatives<br />
from various walks of life for year-long commemoration of 150th birth anniversary of<br />
Mahatma Gandhi<br />
• Rs 1,48,528 crore capital expenditure for Indian Railways for 2018-19<br />
• All trains to be progressively provided with Wi-Fi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities<br />
• NITI Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct efforts in the area of Artificial<br />
Intelligence towards national development<br />
• Five lakh Wi-Fi hotspots to be set up in rural areas to provide easy internet access<br />
• Government to take all steps to eliminate use of cryptocurrencies which are being used<br />
to fund illegitimate transactions<br />
• Individual enterprises too to have unique ID<br />
• Government plans to construct two crore more toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission<br />
• Rs 7,148 crore outlay for textile sector in 2018-19<br />
• One government medical college to be ensured for every three parliamentary constituencies<br />
by upgrading 24 district-level colleges<br />
• Hard work of farmers resulted in a record production of more than 275 million tonnes<br />
of foodgrain and about <strong>30</strong>0 million tonnes of horticultural produce<br />
• Not only focussing on 'Ease of Doing Business' but also 'Ease of Living'<br />
• 70 lakh formal jobs have been created this year. Government will contribute 12 per cent<br />
of the wages as EPF in all sectors for the next three years<br />
• Mass formalisation of MSME sector is happening after demonetisation and GST<br />
• Have decided to take healthcare protection to a new aspirational level. Launching a<br />
flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families,<br />
benefiting approximately 50 crore people<br />
• Providing Rs 5 lakh per family per year for medical reimbursement, under National<br />
Health Protection Scheme. This will be world's largest health protection scheme<br />
• Government is slowly but steadily progressing towards universal health coverage<br />
• Air pollution in Delhi NCR is a cause for concern; special scheme will be implemented<br />
to support Haryana, Punjab, UP and Delhi NCT to address this and subsidise machinery<br />
for management of crop residue<br />
• Scheme for revitalising school infrastructure, with an allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore over<br />
four years. Called RISE - Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education<br />
• Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population<br />
• By 2022, every block with more than 50 per cent ST population and at least 20,000 tribal<br />
people will have 'Ekalavya' school at par with Navodaya Vidyalas<br />
• Integrated B.Ed programme to be initiated for teachers to improve quality of teachers<br />
• India is firmly on path to achieve 8 per cent plus growth<br />
• Propose to raise institutional credit for agriculture to Rs 11 lakh Crore for 2018-19<br />
• Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for rural infrastructure<br />
• Eight crore free gas connections to women under UJJWALA and 4 crore electricity<br />
connections to the poor under Saubhagya Yojana<br />
• Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and Animal Husbandry<br />
Infrastructure Fund to be set up with corpus of Rs 10,000 crore<br />
• Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with allocation of Rs 1,290 crore<br />
to promote sector in a holistic manner<br />
• Rs 500 crore for Operation Green<br />
• Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing<br />
agricultural markets<br />
• 470 APMCs have been connected to #eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March<br />
2018<br />
• Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the<br />
production cost<br />
• From ease of doing business, government has moved to ease of living for the poor and<br />
middle class<br />
• Allocation in for Ministry of Food Processing is being doubled; specialised agro-processing<br />
and financial institutions to be promoted by the government<br />
• India now a $2.5 trillion economy and firmly on path to achieve 8% plus growth soon<br />
• Will focus on agriculture and rural economy, health, infra, senior citizens<br />
• Hope to grow at 7.2 per cent-7.5 per cent in the second half of 2017-18<br />
• Allocating natural resources in a more transparent manner, there is a premium on<br />
honesty now<br />
• Government led by PM Modi has implemented a series of fundamental structural reforms