From World's Largest Health Insurance To Wi-Fi In All Trains: Here Are The Key Takeaways From Budget 2018

Updated on: 1 February 2018 6:41 pm

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday presented the union budget 2018- the first after the big reforms such as the GST and the last by the current government before the 2019 parliament elections. Here are the key takeaways:

World’s largest healthcare insurance
The budget announced a new Flagship Health protection Scheme which will provide health care insurance of up to Rs 5 lakh per year to every poor family. The scheme aims at covering 10 crore families and 50 crore beneficiaries. The scheme would be applicable to all private hospitals as well.Touted as “Modicare” by many, the scheme is the largest healthcare program to be rolled out in the world. The government will also set up 24 new government medical colleges and hospitals by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.

I-T slabs unchanged, women’s EPF reduced
In a relief to the salaried class, the budget kept the income tax (I-T) slab unchanged. It also announced a reduction in women employees' contribution to EPF to 8 per cent for first three years and extended the fixed-term employment facility to all sectors to create more jobs. For senior citizens, exemption of interest income on bank deposits was raised to Rs 50,000 from the current Rs 10,000. Tax will not be deducted at source on fixed deposits. However, the budget raised the health and education cess, levied on all taxable income, to 4% from current 3% , and introduced a social welfare surcharge of 10% to fund social welfare schemes.

RISE to revitalise education
A new initiative known as ‘RISE’ (Revitalising of Infrastructure and Systems in Education ) was announced with a total investment of Rs 1 lakh crore in the next four years. “We propose to increase the digital intensity in education and move gradually from blackboard to digital board,” the minister said in his budget speech.

Agriculture and rural economy
In a major relief to farmers, the government raised the minimum support price (MSP) to 1.5 times the cost of production for all upcoming Kharif crops. It also announced 100% tax deduction for farm producer firms with Rs 100 crore turnover.Kisan credit card will be extended to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers. The government will spend Rs 14.34 lakh crore in rural areas for jobs and infra.

Housing for all by 2022
In line with the government’s aim to provide housing for all by 2022, the budget has proposed to set up an affordable housing fund under the National Housing Bank (NHB). The government has set a target to construct at least 2 crore toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission and 51 lakh affordable housing units in rural and 50 lakh in urban areas. It has proposed a tax relief for buyers and sellers of property by allowing it to be valued at up to 5% below circle rates for calculation of stamp duty and capital gains tax.

Wi-Fi in all trains and railway stations

The finance minister said that all railway stations and trains in the country will have Wi-Fi and CCTVs progressively. In a big push for Railways, the minister also said all the railways stations with more than 25,000 footfall will have escalators. This is the second union budget since the Centre merged the Railway budget with the general budget last year. The government announced a capital expenditure of Rs 1.48 lakh crore for the Indian Railways

Big push for lending under MUDRA

The budget allocated Rs 3 lakh crore for lending under Micro-Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd (MUDRA), a nearly 20 per cent rise from the last year,

Tax-cut for corporations and reintroduction of LTCG
The budget lowered the corporate tax for small, micro and medium enterprises with turnover of up to Rs 250 crore to 25% from current 30%. But, it reintroduced the tax on long term capital gains (LTCG) of over Rs 1 lakh made from the sale of shares.

Fiscal Deficit Target
The finance minister let go on the fiscal consolidation roadmap, which became a major point for the Opposition to train their guns against the government after the budget presentation. The fiscal deficit for current fiscal will widen to 3.5% of the GDP as against 3.2% previously targeted, and to 3.3% in FY'19 as opposed to 3 per cent previously targeted.