Jaitley presents Union Budget 2016-17
29 Feb 2016
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Finance minister Arun Jaitley today announced the nine pillars on which Budget 2016 would be focussing.
These are - agriculture and farmer welfare; rural sector with a view to improve employment; social sector with focus on primary healthcare; education sector with a focus on improving skills; infrastructure and investment with a view to improve quality of life; financial sector reforms; governance and ease of doing business; fiscal discipline and delivering benefits to needy; and tax reforms.
Highlights:
- Revenue gains of Rs19,600 crore from indirect and direct tax changes
- Propose 45% tax on undisclosed income under new scheme
- Abolition of cesses levied by 13 ministries to simplify busineses
- Expansion of benches for customs, excise and service tax tribunal
- Limited period compliance window for declaring undisclosed income
- Penalty in cases of concealment of income
- Move towards low tax regime with non litigious approach
- Excise duty on tobacco products 10-15%
- Clean energy cess on coal doubled to Rs. 400/tn
- SUVs, luxury cars to be more expensive
- Service tax exemption under rural electrification plans
- No service tax for houses being built in less than 60 sq metres
- Withdrawal upto 40% from NPS to be tax exempt
- Committed to implementing GAAR from April 2017
- Rationalisation of customs & excise duty rates to boost Make in India
- Relief for small tax payers:Ceiling of tax rebate increased by Rs. 3,000
- Taxation norms for professionals eased
- Tax rebate on rent up from Rs24,000 to Rs60,000 per annum
- Relief for those who stay in rented houses
- Relief for small tax payers
- Role of tax payer in nation building
- FDI policy: Changes in insurance, pension, asset reconstruction
- Prudence lies in adhering to fiscal targets
- Debt recovery tribunals to be strengthened
- 300,000 fair price shops to be automated by March '17
- 25,000 crore for bank recapitalisation in 2016-17
- Financial data management centre for integrated data analysis
- Govt. stands firmly behind public sector banks
- 100% FDI in marketing of food products made in India
- RBI Act to be amended to provide for monetary policy panel
- New credit rating system for infra to be developed
- To incentivise gas production from deep sea
- Rs3000 crore allocated for nuclear power
- To partner with state govts to rejuvenate under served airports
- NHAI to raise Rs15,000 cr via bonds in 2017
- 10,000 km of national highways in 2016-17
- Outlay of Rs2,18,000 crore for railways, roads in 2017
- 85% of stalled road projects back on track
- Rs1000 crore set aside for higher education financing
- 3000 drug stores to be opened under PM Aushadi Yojna
- 9,000 crore allocated to Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan
- Rs2000 crore set aside for LPG connection to BPL families
- To provide Rs130,000/yr health cover for senior citizens
- Propose national dialysis service programme
- LPG connection to woman member of rural homes
- Aim for 100% village electrification by May 1, 2018
- Digital literacy scheme for rural India
- 5 lakh acres to be brought under organic farming over 3 years
- To launch 4 new dairy programmes
- 38,500 crore allocated for MNREGA
- Rs5000 crore allocated for crop insurance scheme
- Allocation of Rs35,984 crore for farm sector
- Rs19,000 cr in 2017 for PM's Gram Sadak Yojna
- To spend Rs. 60,000 crore for water resources management
- To allocate Rs. 17000 crore for irrigation schemes in 2017
- Infrastructure for irrigation will be created
- Rs.28.5 lakh hectares will be brought under irrigation
- Double income of farmers in 5 years
- Farm, rural sectors to have more govt spending
- Risk of global slowdown mounting
- Growth has acclerated to 7.6 % in 2015-16
- 3 schemes to address weaker sections
- 2016: Current account deficit seen at 1.4% of GDP
- Forex reserves are at highest level at $350 billion
- Converted difficulties into opportunities
