Union Budget 2017: Highlights

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley laid out on Wednesday a national budget that aimed to boost spending, as he sought to lift growth and assuage people’s pain from the government’s drive to purge the economy of “black money”.

Highlights:

· Select airports in tier-II cities will be taken in PPP mode.

· Transport sector allocation Rs 2,41,000 crore in 2017-18.

· Budget increase for highways from Rs 57,676 crore to Rs 64,000 crore.

· A new metro rail policy will be announced, this will open up new jobs for our youth.

· Service charges on railway e-tickets will be withdrawn.

· All coaches of Indian Railways will be fitted with bio-toilets. Unmanned crossings will be eliminated by 2018. 3,500 railway lines will be commissioned.

· Railways will integrate end to end transport solutions for selected commodities through partnership.

· Four focus areas for Indian Railways: Passenger safety, capital and development work, cleanliness and financial and accounting norms.

· Rail safety fund with corpus of Rs 100,000 crore will be created over a period of five years.

· For senior citizens, Aadhaar cards giving their health condition will be introduced.

· Allocation for scheduled castes from Rs 38,800 to Rs 52,000.

· Two new centres of medical sciences in Jharkhand and Gujarat.

· Additional 5,000 PG seats for medical sciences.

· Affordable housing to get infrastructure status.

· Safe drinking water to cover 28,000 arsenic and fluoride affected habitations in the next four years.

· For youth, we propose to introduce a system of measuring annual learning; science will be given focus.

· Good quality institutions will have more autonomy. Colleges will be given autonomous status.

· Total allocation for rural, agricultural and allied sectors for 2017-18 is Rs 187223 crore, which is 24% higher than last year.

· Dedicated micro-irrigation fund will b set up by NABARD to achieve goal of ‘Per Drop More Crop’.Initial corpus will be Rs 5000 crore.

· Open defecation free villages are now being given priority for pipe to water supply.

· One crore house by 2019. PM Ayas Yojana allocation for 2017-18 will be Rs 23,000, up from Rs 15,000 crore in last budget. 100% village electrification by May 1, 2018.

· Budget allocation to MNREGA increased to a record Rs 48,000 crore for 2017-18, from Rs 37,000 crore in 2016-17. Five lakh ponds target achieved for 2016/17. Another five lakh ponds to be taken up in 2017/18 for drought proofing of villages.

· Participation of women in MNREGA has increased to 55%

· Target of agricultural loans to farmers set at record Rs 10 lakh crore in 2017/18.

· GST, demonetisation two tectonic policy initiatives

· We have witnessed historic and impactful economic reform and policymaking

· Number of global reports show India has considerably improved its policies, profile and practice

· Three challenges in current global scenario: Monetary stance of US FED Reserve, commodity prices specially crude oil and retreat from globalisation

· A model law on contract farming will be circulated among states for consultation.

· Dairy processing infrastructure fund will be set up under NABARD, with fund of 8,000 crore.

· Issuance of soil health cards have gathered momentum, will setup a mini lab in Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

· With better monsoon, agriculture is expected to grow at 4.1% in current year.

· Uncertainty around commodity prices, especially around crude oil, is one of the major challenges.

· India continues to stand as a bright spot in the world economic landscape.

· Signs of retreat from globalisation have potential to affect exports from many emerging economies, including India.

· Uncertainty around commodity prices, especially around crude oil, second major challenge.

· Current monetary plance of the US Federal reserve one of three challenges.

· My approach in preparing the Budget 2017 is to spend more on rural areas, infrastructure and poverty alleviation with fiscal prudence.

· Focus of budget is to spend more in rural areas, infrastructure and poverty alleviation, yet maintain best standards of fiscal prudence.

· Pace of remonetisation has picked up and will soon be normal. Impact will not be visible next year.

· Effect of demonetisation will not spill into the next year.

· I am reminded of what the Father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi said -- “a right cause never fails”.

· The advanced economies are expected to increase their growth from 1.6%-1.9% and emerging economies from 4.1%-4.5%.

· Demonetisation is a bold and decisive measure... It seeks to create a new normal wherein the GDP will be bigger, cleaner and real.

· India is seen as engine of global growth, have witnessed historic reform in last one year.

· International Monetary Fund estimates that the world GDP will grow by 3.1% in 2016 and 3.4% in 2017.

· FDI increase was 36% despite 5% fall in global FDI flow.

· We have moved from a discretionary administration to a policy-based administration.

· Our government was elected amid huge expectations of people, the underlying theme of expectations being good governance.

· Spring is season of expectations…there was expectation of major change.