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The Finance Minister of India Arun Jaitley presented Union Budget 2017-2018 today in the parliament today. It appears to be a people friendly budget and number of welfare schemes and tax benefits were announced.
Highlights of the Union Budget 2017-2018:
- Income tax rates are reduced from 10% to 5% for people having annual income between Rs 250,000 to Rs 500,000
- One crore budget houses will be built for the poor by the year 2019.
- No service charge for the rail tickets booked using IRCTC website.
- Rs. 48,000 crores are allocated for MNREGA. This will provide more employment opportunities along with higher veges for the labors in the rural and the urban sector. Earlier Rs. 38,500 crores only were allocated to MNREGA.
- Rs 3,96,135 crore are allocated to the infrastructure growth in India which is the highest so far.
- A new mono rail policy will be announced soon to create mono rail infrastructure across major cities in India. This will create job opportunities in the sector.
- 3,500 KM of railway lines to be constructed to increase the rail connectivity across the country
- 500 railway stations will be renovated and made disabled friendly
- Rs. 100,000 crore worth of rail safety fund will be created in next 5 years
- All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will be setup in Jharkhand and Gujarat.
- Government will launch new types of ADHAAR cards for citizens which will have their health details.
- Rs 1,87,223 crore are allocated for the agriculture, rural and related sectors. This is the increase of 24% as compared to the allotment in the last budget.
- Strategic crud oil reserves will be setup in Odisha and Rajasthan
- 1.25 crore people have started using BHIM app for the payments and money transfers
- A new money transfer app based on the ADHAAR will be launched soon. It will be called as Aadhaar Pay and this will be primarily for merchants.
- A new law will be introduced to seize the properties of the offenders and run away out of the country.
- Rs. 2.74 lakh crores will be spent on the defence sector.
- Corporate tax for small industries with turnover is less than Rs. 50 crores is reduced to 25% from 30%.
- Cash transaction limit will be Rs. 3 lakh only above that digital payments should be used.
- Maximum cash donations which can be made to any party is restricted to Rs. 2000 only.
- Political parties are now required to receive donations using cheques and digital payment methods
- People with annual income of Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 1 crore need to pay surcharge of 10% and above 1 crore income groups needs to pay surcharge of 15%.
