Union Budget Highlights 2018-19
- Personal Income Tax rates unchanged;
- Senior citizens can claim benefit of reduction Rs. 50,000/ year w.r.t any general health expenditure and health insurance premium: FM
- Rs 40,000 standard deduction to salaried people: FM
- Companies with turnover of upto Rs. 250 cr to be taxed at 25%:
- 100% tax deduction for first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs. 100 crore and above:
- 12.6% growth in direct taxes in 2017-18; 18.7% growth in indirect taxes in 2017-18:
- Revised fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 is 3.5% of GDP, fiscal deficit of 3.3% expected for 2018-19:
- MP salaries to be revised with effect from 1 April, 2018. It will increase every 5 years indexed to inflation: FM
- Emoluments of President to be revised to Rs 5 lakh per month and emoluments of Vice-president to be revised to Rs 4 lakh per month:
- Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target for 2018-19; target for 2017-18 exceeded and will reach Rs 1 lakh crore:
- Regional Connectivity Scheme 'UDAN' shall connect 56 unserved airports and 31 helipads in the country:
- Mission on cyber space will be launched in support of establishment of centres of excellence:
- Railway stations with more than 25,000 footfalls will have escalators, trains will have WiFi and CCTV services: FM
- Ujjwala Yojana helped millions of poor get free LPG connection:
- Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations taken up; Mumbai transport system being expanded; suburban network of 160 km planned for Bengaluru:
- Cleaning of river Ganga is of national importance, have sanctioned 187 projects under Namami Gange scheme:
- Mass formalisation of MSME sector is happening after demonetisation and GST:
- Govt will contribute 12% of wages of new employees in EPF for all sectors for the next 3 years:
- 76% of loan accounts are of women and more than 50% belong to SC, ST and OBC under the Mudra Yojana. Rs 3 lakh crore will be lent under Mudra Yojana in 2018-19:
- 24 district level colleges will be upgraded:
- 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:
- Govt plans to construct 2 crore more toilets under swachhbharat Mission:
- Govt. to initiate integration of B.Ed programme for teachers; Centre to start Eklavya schools for ST population:
- Govt to subsidise removal of crop residue to tackle problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue:
- Govt to set up fishery & aquaculture infrastructure fund; also to set up animal husbandry infrastructure fund with a total corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore
- Manufacturing sector is back on growth path; Exports are expected to grow by 15% in 2017-18
- We hope to grow at 7.2% - 7.5% in second half of 2017-18; We are on track to grow at 8% and good governance is our priority:
Neeraj Choudhary