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Wednesday, 1 February 2017
Highlights of Union Budget 2017
The 2017 Union
Budget, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday, was broadly
focused on 10 themes — the farming sector, the rural population, the youth, the
poor and underprivileged health care, infrastructure, the financial sector for
stronger institutions, speedy accountability, public services, prudent fiscal
management and tax administration for the honest.
Following are
the highlights of Mr. Jaitley's Budget speech:
Demonetisation
Demonetisation
is expected to have a transient impact on the economy.
It will have a
great impact on the economy and lives of people .
Demonetisation
is a bold and decisive measure that will lead to higher GDP growth.
The effects of
demonetisation will not spillover to the next fiscal.
Agriculture sector
Sowing farmers
should feel secure against natural calamities.
A sum of Rs.
10 lakh crore is allocated as credit to farmers, with 60 days interest waiver.
NABARD fund
will be increased to Rs. 40,000 crore.
Government
will set up mini labs in Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soil testing.
A dedicated
micro irrigation fund will be set up for NABARD with Rs 5,000 crore initial
corpus.
Irrigation
corpus increased from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore.
Dairy
processing infrastructure fund wlll be initially created with a corpus of Rs.
2000 crore.
Issuance of
soil cards has gained momentum.
A model law on
contract farming will be prepared and shared with the States.
Rural population
The government
targets to bring 1 crore households out of poverty by 2019.
During
2017-18, five lakh farm ponds will be be taken up under the MGNREGA.
Over Rs 3 lakh
crore will be spent for rural India. MGNREGA to double farmers' income.
Will take
steps to ensure participation of women in MGNREGA up to 55%.
Space
technology will be used in a big way to ensure MGNREGA works.
The government
proposes to complete 1 crore houses for those without homes.
Will allocate
Rs. 19,000 crore for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in 2017-18.
The country
well on way to achieve 100% rural electrification by March 2018.
Swachh Bharat
mission has made tremendous progress; sanitation coverage has gone up from 42%
in Oct 13 to 60% now.
For youth
Will introduce
a system of measuring annual learning outcomes and come out with an innovation
fund for secondary education.
Focus will be
on 3,479 educationally-backward blocks.
Colleges will
be identified based on accreditation.
Skill India
mission was launched to maximise potential. Will set up 100 India International
centres across the country.
Courses on
foreign languages will be introduced.
Will take
steps to create 5000 PG seats per annum.
For the poor and
underprivilege health care
Rs. 500 crore
allocated for Mahila Shakthi Kendras.
Under a
nationwide scheme for pregnant women, Rs. 6000 will be transferred to each
person.
A sum of Rs.
1,84,632 crore allocated for women and children.
Affordable
housing will be given infrastructure status.
Owing to
surplus liquidity, banks have started reducing lending rates for housing.
Elimination of
tuberculosis by 2025 targeted.
Health sub
centres, numbering 1.5 lakh, willl be transformed into health wellness centres.
Two AIIMS will
be set up in Jharkhand and Gujarat.
Will undertake
structural transformation of the regulator framework for medical education.
Allocation for
Scheduled Castes is Rs. 52,393 crore
Aadhaar-based
smartcards will be issued to senior citizens to monitor health.
Infrastructure and
railways
A total
allocation of Rs. 39,61,354 crore has been made for infrastructure.
Total
allocation for Railways is Rs. 1,31,000 crore.
No service
charge on tickets booked through IRCTC.
Raksha coach
with a corpus of Rs. 1 lakh crore for five years (for passenger safety).
Unmanned level
crossings will be eliminated by 2020.
3,500 km of
railway lines to be commissioned this year up from 2,800 km last year.
SMS-based
''clean my coach service'' is put in place.
Coach mitra
facility will be introduced to register all coach related complaints.
By 2019 all
trains will have bio-toilets.
Five-hundred
stations will be made differently-abled friendly.
Railways to
partner with logistics players for front-end and back-end solutions for select
commodities.
Railways will
offer competitive ticket booking facility.
Rs. 64,000
crore allocated for highways.
High speed
Internet to be allocated to 1,50,000 gram panchayats.
New Metro rail
policy will be announced with new modes of financing.
Energy sector
A strategic
policy for crude reserves will be set up.
Rs. 1.26,000
crore received as energy production based investments.
Trade infra
export scheme will be launched 2017-18.
Financial sector
FDI policy
reforms - more than 90% of FDI inflows are now automated.
Shares of
Railway PSE like IRCTC will be listed on stock exchanges.
Bill on
resolution of financial firms will be introduced in this session of Parliament.
Foreign
Investment Promotion Board will be abolished.
Revised
mechanism to ensure time-bound listing of CPSEs.
Computer
emergency response team for financial sector will be formed.
Pradhan Mantri
Mudra Yojana lending target fixed at Rs 2.44 lakh crore for 2017-18.
Digital India
- BHIM app will unleash mobile phone revolution.
The government will introduce
two schemes to promote BHIM App - referral bonus for the users and cash back
for the traders.
Negotiable
Instruments Act might be amended.
DBT to LPG
consumers , Chandigarh is kerosene-free, 84 government schemes are on the DBT
platform.
Head post
office as the central office for rendering passport service.
Easy online
booking system for Army and other defence personnel.
For big-time
offences - including economic offenders fleeing India, the government will
introduce legislative change or introduce law to confiscate the assets of these
people within the country.
Fiscal situation
Total
expenditure is Rs. 21, 47,000 crore.
Plan, non-plan
expenditure to be abolished; focus will be on capital expenditure, which will
be 25.4 %.
Rs. 3,000
crore under the Department of Economic Affairs for implementing the
Budget announcements.
Expenditure
for science and technology is Rs. 37,435 crore.
Total
resources transferred to States and Union Territories is Rs 4.11 lakh crore.
Recommended 3%
fiscal deficit for three years with a deviation of 0.5% of the GDP.
Revenue
deficit is 1.9 %
Fiscal deficit
of 2017-18 pegged at 3.2% of the GDP. Will remain committed to achieving 3% in
the next year.
Funding of political
parties
The maximum
amount of cash donation for a political party will be Rs. 2,000 from any one
source.
Political
parties will be entitled to receive donations by cheque or digital mode from
donors.
An amendment
is being proposed to the RBI Act to enable issuance of electoral bonds .A donor
can purchase these bonds from banks or post offices through cheque or digital
transactions. They can be redeemed only by registered political parties.
Defence sector
The defence
sector gets an allocation of Rs. 2.74,114 crore.
Tax proposals
India’s tax to
GDP ratio is not favourable.
Out of 13.14
lakh registered companies, only 5.97 lakh firms have filed returns for 2016-17.
Proportion of
direct tax to indirect tax is not optimal.
Individuals
numbering 1.95 crore showed an income between Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
Out of 76 lakh
individual assessees declaring income more than Rs. 5 lakh, 56 lakh are
salaried.
Only 1.72 lakh
people showed income of more than Rs. 50 lakh a year.
Between
November 8 to December 30, deposits ranging from Rs. 2 lakh and Rs. 80 lakh
were made in 1.09 crore accounts.
Net tax
revenue of 2013-14 was Rs. 11.38 lakh crore.
Out of 76 lakh
individual assessees declaring income more than Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are
salaried.
1.95 crore
individuals showed income between Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
Rate of growth
of advance tax in Personal I-T is 34.8% in the last three quarters of this
financial year.
Holding period
for long term capital gain lowered to two years
Proposal to
have a carry-forward of MAT for 15 years.
Capital gains
tax to be exempted for persons holding land from which land was pooled for
creation of the state capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Under the corporate
tax, in order to make MSME companies more viable, there is a proposal to reduce
tax for small companies with a turnover of up to Rs 50 crore to 25%. About 67
lakh companies fall in this category. Ninety-six % of companies to get this
benefit.
The government
proposes to reduce basic customs duty for LNG to 2.5% from 5%.
The Income Tax
Act to be amended to ensure that no transaction above Rs 3 lakh is
permitted in cash.
The limit of
cash donation by charitable trusts is reduced to Rs 2,000 from Rs 10,000.
Net revenue
loss in direct tax could be Rs. 20,000 crore.
Personal income tax
Existing rate
of tax for individuals between Rs. 2.5- Rs 5 lakh is reduced to 5% from
10%.
All other
categories of tax payers in subsequent brackets will get a benefit of Rs
12,500.
Simple one
page return for people with an annual income of Rs. 5 lakh other than business
income.
People filing
I-T returns for the first time will not come under any government scrutiny.
Ten %
surcharge on individual income above Rs. 50 lakh and up to Rs 1 crore to make
up for Rs 15,000 crore loss due to cut in personal I-T rate. 15 surcharge on
individual income above Rs. 1 crore to remain.
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