Keeping an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal today presented the Narendra Modi government's sixth and final
budget before the polls. Highlighting the key initiatives of the government in the past four and half year, Finance Minister announced farmer income support scheme of Rs 6,000 per year, interest subvention scheme for farm loan takers and new pension scheme for unorganised sector workers along with higher allocation for rural schemes like MNREGA and village roads. Goyal also said that the government has brought down the inflation from 10 percent in the UPA era to 4 percent.
Goyal is presenting the
interim Budget as finance minister in absence of Arun Jaitley who in undergoing medical treatment in US.
Here are all the key highlights from Interim Budget 2019:
Tax announcements:
* Income Tax returns to be processed within 24 hours and returns will be paid immediately
* Within nearly two years, almost all assessment and verification of IT returns will be done electronically by an anonymised tax system without any intervention by officials
* Group of Ministers to suggest ways to reduce GST for house buyers
* Direct tax collections increased from Rs 6.38 lakh crore in 2013-14 to almost Rs 12 lakh crore; The tax base is up from Rs 3.79 crore to 6.85 crore
* Gratuity limit increased for workers
Other key announcements:
* Rs 6000 per year pension for farmers
* Rs 3,000 per year pension for unorganised sector workers
* Interest subvention for farm loan takers
* Businesses with less than Rs 5 crore annual turnover, comprising over 90% of GST payers, will be allowed to return quarterly returns
* A single window clearance for filmmakers
* Indian Customs to fully digitised exim transactions and leveraging RFID for logistic. Govt abolishes duties on 36 capital goods
Social schemes:
* New Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana for unorganised sector workers with income up to Rs 15,000 per month. Beneficiaries will get Rs 3,000 per month pension with a contribution of Rs 100 per month after the retirement. Govt allocates Rs 500 crore for the scheme
* Govt approves assured income support scheme for small and marginal farmers under which every farmers having up to 2 hectare of lands will get Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installment. This will benefit 12 crore small and marginal farmers and the expenditure of nearly Rs 75,000 crore for the scheme will be borne by the Centre. The scheme will be effective from December 1, 2018.
* Instead of rescheduling of crop loans, the farmers severely affected by natural calamities will get 2 percent interest subvention and additional 3 per cent interest subvention upon timely repayment
* 2% interest subvention to farmers who pursue animal husbandry, fisheries jobs through Kisaan credit cards
* Kamdhenu scheme for animal husbandary
* Govt to build 1 lakh digital villages
* For the welfare of farmers and for doubling their income, historic decision was taken to increase MSP by 1.5 times the production cost for all 22 crops
* To ensure cleaner fuel and health assurance, we embarked upon Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, a programme to give 8 crore free LPG connections to rural households, 6 crore connections have been given already
* Committee under NITI Aayog to be set up to for denotifed nomadic & semi nomadic communities
* A single window clearance for filmmakers to be made available to filmmakers, anti-camcording provision to also to be introduced to Cinematography Act to fight piracy
State of Economy:
*India is poised to become a $5 trillion economy in next 5 years, $10-trillion economy in the next eight years
* Committed to eliminating the scourge of black money; anti-black money measures taken have brought an undisclosed income of about 1.30 lakh crore rupees to the fore; 3.38 lakh shell companies were deregistered
* GST collections in January 2019 has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore
* GST has been continuously reduced, resulting in relief of 80,000 crore rupees to consumers; most items of daily use for poor and middle class are now in the 0%-5% tax bracket
*Fiscal deficit seen at 3.4 percent in FY 19 and Current account deficit at 2.5% of the GDP
* We have recovered Rs 3 lakh crore through Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Govt expects banks on the central bank's Prompt Corrective Action list to be removed soon.
* GDP growth in the last 5 years has been higher than that by any other govt. Spent Rs 2.6 lakh crore in recap of PSU Banks
* Average inflation in UPA government was 10% and we have brought that down that to 4 percent. Inflation in December 2018 was 2.1%. If we had not controlled inflation our families would have been spending 35-40 per cent more on daily use items
* We conducted transparent auctioning of natural resources like coal and oil
* Domestic air traffic doubled in the last 5 years
* Over 90 percent of the country has been covered under sanitation coverage. People have made this a social revolution and i thank the 130 people of the country. More than 5.45 lakh villages have been declared Open Defecation Free
* In the past, false promises were made but we have taken targeted expenditure on all dimensions
* Everybody will get electricity connection in the near future. We have provided 143 crore electricity bulb to the poor
* Ayushman Bharat the world's largest healthcare programme was launched to provide medical care to almost 50 crore people, resulting in 3,000 crore savings by poor families
* Lower costs of Stents & Knee implants have benefitted people. Government has announced 14 new AIIMS since 2014
* Loans worth Rs 7.23 lakh crore have been given under Mudra Yojana
* Today there is not a single unmanned railway crossing on the broad gauge in India. Railway's operating ratio seen 96.2% in FY19 Vs 95% FY20. Railway capex for FY20 set at record Rs 1.6 Lakh Cr
*Monthly mobile data consumption has increased 50x in last 5 years; cost of data & voice calls in India is possible the lowest in the world
Allocations:
* Rs 60,000 crore allocated for MNREGA this year
* Rs 19,000 allocated for construction of rural roads under Gram Sadak yojana
* For securing our borders, govt increases defence budget to over Rs 3 lakh crore. Govt will provide additional funds for Defence, if needed