Agriculture and Rural Economy
- The volume of Institutional credit for agriculture sector has been proposed to increase from Rs. 10 lakh crore in 2017-18 to Rs. 11 lakh crore in 2018-19
- Setting up of Fisheries and Aqua culture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry sector with a total corpus of Rs.10,000 crore for the two new funds
- A scheme of Operation Greens was announced with an outlay of Rs. 500 crore to address the challenge of price volatility of perishable commodities like tomato, onion, and potato
- Development and upgrading of existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) to take care of the interests of more than 86% small and marginal farmers
- Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs.2000 crore will be setup for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22000 Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and 585APMCs
- Allocation to Ministry of Food Processing has been doubled from Rs.715 crore in 2017-18 to Rs.1400 crore in 2018-19
- Terming Bamboo as Green Gold, the Finance Minister announced a Re-structured National Bamboo Mission with an outlay of Rs.1290 crore to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner
- Loans to SHGs will increase to Rs.75,000 crore by March 2019. Allocation of National Rural Livelihood Mission increased to Rs 5750 crore in 2018-19
- Under Ujjwala Scheme distribution of free LPG connections will be given to 8 crore poor women instead of the previous target of 5 crore women
Education, Health, and Social Protection
- Estimated budgetary expenditure on health, education and social protection for 2018-19 is Rs.1.38 lakh crore against estimated expenditure of Rs.1.22 lakh crore in 2017-18
- Setting up of Ekalavya Model Residential School on par with Navodaya Vidyalayas to provide the best quality education to the tribal children in their own environment by 2022
- Announced Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022 with a total investment of Rs.1,00,000 crore in next four years, to step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions, including health institutions
- Launched Prime Ministers Research Fellows (PMRF) under this, 1,000 best B.Tech students will be identified each year from premier institutions and provide them facilities to do Ph.D. in IITs and IISc, with a handsome fellowship
- Announced the worlds largest government-funded health care programme titled National Health Protection Scheme to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage up to 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization
- The government will be setting up 24 new Government Medical Colleges and Hospitals by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country
Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) and Employment
- A sum of Rs. 3794 crore has been provided for giving credit support, capital and interest subsidy and for innovations
Employment Generation
- Government will contribute 12% of the wages of the new employees in the EPF for all the sectors for next three years
- Amendment has been proposed in the Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 to reduce women employees' contribution to 8% for first three years of their employment against existing rate of 12% or 10% with no change in employers' contribution
- Proposed an outlay of Rs.7148 crore for the textile sector in 2018-19 as against Rs.6,000 Crore in 2016
Infrastructure and Financial Sector Development
- Announced increase of budgetary allocation on infrastructure for 2018-19 to Rs.5.97 lakh crore against estimated expenditure of Rs.4.94 lakh crore in 2017-18
Railways
- Railways Capital Expenditure for the year 2018-19 has been pegged at Rs.1,48,528 crore
Airport Transport
- The Budget proposes to expand the airport capacity more than five times to handle a billion trips a year under a new initiative - NABH Nirman
- Under the Regional connectivity scheme of UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) initiated by the Government last year, 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads would be connected
Digital Economy
- The Budget doubled the allocation on Digital India programme to Rs. 3073 crore in 2018-19
- Allocated Rs. 10,000 crore in 2018-19 for creation and augmentation of Telecom infrastructure
Fiscal Management
- Continuing Governments path of fiscal reduction and consolidation, the Finance Minister projected a Fiscal Deficit of 3.3% of GDP for the year 2018-19
- Proposed 100 percent deduction to companies registered as Farmer Producer Companies with an annual turnover of up to Rs. 100 crore on profit derived from such activities, for a period of five years from the financial year 2018-19
- Relief to salaried taxpayers by allowing a Standard Deduction of Rs. 40,000 in place of the present exemption allowed for transport allowance and reimbursement of miscellaneous medical expenses
- For senior citizens exemption of interest income on deposits with banks and post offices are proposed to be increased from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000 and hike in deduction limit for health insurance premium and/or medical expenditure from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 50,000 under section 80D
- Payments exceeding Rs. 10,000 in cash made by trusts and institutions has been disallowed and would be subject to tax
- Proposed to tax Long-Term Capital Gains exceeding Rs. 1 lakh at the rate of 10 percent, without allowing any indexation benefit
- The Budget proposes to increase the cess on personal income tax and corporation tax to 4 percent from the present 3 percent. The new cess will be called the Health and Education Cess
- Proposed to increase customs duty 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.
