Union Budget 2017-18

Union Budget 2017-18

The Visionary union budget on 2017-18:

          The visionary road map for INDIA through budget was released by ARUN JAITLEY “Finance Minister of India” in our budget meeting on Feb-1-2017 for the year of 2017 to 2018 which was mainly focused on demonetisation, income tax changes, fiscal consolidation path, affordable housing, focusing on NDA government for infrastructure development in our nation and some of anti-corruption themes like announcing 3 lakh for cash transaction.  

Demonetisation:

             The main objective of Indian Government is to demonetise our money value based on the calculation of RBI.

Agriculture sector:

              For the growth of farmer and their life savings, our Indian government has allocated 10 lakh crores which include new mini soil testing labs at “Krishi Vigyan Kendras”, NABARD funds, micro irrigation fund, irrigation corpus, dairy processing infrastructure, issuance of soil cards and a model law for farming.

Rural Population:

              For the rural population growth in India, Rs.3 lakh crores were allocated which will mainly focus on completion of 1 core household, based on MGNREGA 55% participation of women in "Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana” for 2017-18. And government expects our country will be on the way to achieve 100% rural electrification by March 2018.

For youth:

          Based on Skill India mission, the Indian government has planned to setup 100 Indian International centers, focusing on 3,479 educationally-backward blocks with courses on foreign languages and by producing 5000 PG sets per annum.

For the poor and underprivileged health care:

          For Underprivileged people, the Indian government has listed schemes like Rs.500 crore for “Mahila Shakthi Kendra”,  Rs.6000 for every pregnant woman, Rs.1,84,632 crore for women and children welfare and Rs.1.5 lakh will be transformed into health wellness centers. Two AIIMS will be set up in Jharkhand and Gujarat and for scheduled Castes, Rs.52,393 crore is allocated. Aadhaar-based smart cards will be issued to senior citizens to monitor health.

Infrastructure and railways:

              In this category, Rs.39,61,354 crore and Rs.1,31,000 crore were allocated to infrastructure and railways respectively. New plans like SMS-based ''clean my coach service'' and bio-toilets will be introduced soon.

Energy sector:

              In this sector, Rs.1,26,000 crore will be invested for energy production and a scheme called "Trade infra export" will be introduced soon.

Financial sector:

           Financial sector focuses on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), Digital India - BHIM app and changing consumers of DBT to LPG  with government schemes. For these schemes, a total of Rs.2.44 lakh crore was allocated based on "Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana" for 2017-18. And also, Head post office will be transformed into the central office for rendering passport service and online booking system for Army and other defense personnel.

Fiscal situation:

          For Department of Economic Affairs Rs. 3,000 crore, for science and technology  Rs. 37,435 crore, and for resources transferred to States and Union Territories, Rs.4.11 lakh crores were allocated. The fiscal deficit of 3% was recommended for three years with a deviation of 0.5% of the GDP. Revenue deficit of 1.9% and the Fiscal deficit 3.2% of the GDP for 2017-18 was allocated respectively. As a total, Rs.21, 47,000 crores is allocated for plan and non-plan expenditures.

Funding of political parties:

          The maximum donation for a political party is allocated as  Rs.2000 from any source. The political parties should receive the donations only through cheque or digital mode of transaction. An amendment is being proposed to the RBI Act, to enable it strictly.

Defense sector:

          The defense sector gets an allocation of Rs.2.74,114 crore.

Tax proposals:

              Capital gains tax was exempted for persons holding land from which land was pooled for the creation of capital for Andhra Pradesh.  Under the corporate tax, there is a proposal to reduce tax for small companies with a turnover of up to Rs. 50 crore to 25%. The government proposes to reduce basic customs duty for LNG to 2.5% from 5%. The Income Tax Act is to be amended to ensure that no transaction above Rs.3 lakh is permitted in the form of cash. The limit of cash donation by charitable trusts is reduced to Rs 2,000 from Rs 10,000. And Net revenue loss in direct tax could be Rs. 20,000 crore.

Personal income tax:

Existing tax rate for individuals between Rs.  2.5- Rs.5 lakhs is reduced to 5% from 10%.

All other categories of taxpayers in subsequent brackets will get a benefit of RS 12,500.

Simple one-page return is enough for people with an annual income of RS. 5 lakh other than business income.

People filing I-T returns for the first time will not come under any government scrutiny.

10% surcharge for individual income above Rs.50 lakh and up to Rs.1 crore to make up for RS 15,000 crore loss due to cut in personal IT rate. 15% surcharge on individual income above Rs.1 crore will remain the same.

The INDIA on 2018:

              Our expectation for this new budget released on “Feb-1” is based on Central Government decisions against corruption. Newly released schemes can be effective to control small and local based corruption. But the new schemes can cause burdens to ordinary citizens. Is these schemes can have an effect on big and international business related corruptions? And the answer can’t be sure. This visionary budget design is not having any changes on taxes of FDI or international business levels and its law. So, in my vision, there is no big chance of change in our GDP or economic growth of India and its welfare. Overall, it is a good budget as it will not affect the current level economic in our country.