Union Budget 2017-18

Union Budget 2017-18

How "uttam" is budget 2017? What's new this year besides the date?

Surely you can't listen to the entire hours long broadcast of the Annual Union Budget and the only snippets you hear on news channels are frivolous and unrelated comments by political leaders with their own propagandas. So where do you turn to look for something meaningful at this crucial day?

Definitely to the Ecovision blog as we provide you with a concise sector-wise analysis of Budget 2017-18

Read on to find out more.

RAILWAYS-
-A total allocation of Rs. 39,61,354 crore has been made for infrastructure.
-Total allocation for Railways is Rs. 1,31,000 crore.
-New Metro rail policy will be announced with new modes of financing, which will prove to more efficient
-No Service charge will be charged from now on while booking tickets with IRCTC
-A feedback system has been initiated too along with some other noticeable benefits. The most prominent features include:

- An SMS to “clean my coach.”: This system shall provide users with an SMS facility that directly requests the railway authorities to clean the train coaches.
-Coach Mitra (Friend) Facility - To register all coach related complaints
-Bio Toilets for all trains would be installed by the fiscal year 2019-20.
-500 stations will be made differently-abled friendly, to allow an easy commute for such people.
-“Raksha coaches” have been introduced with a corpus of ₹1 Lakh Crore to be used in five years. This will be an initiative towards passenger safety.
-Railways will be partnering with certain logistics players for ‘front-end’ and ‘back-end’ solutions for select commodities. From now on railways will offer competitive ticket booking facility.

FINANCIAL SECTOR
-Shares of Railway PSE like IRCTC would be listed on stock exchanges from now on.
-A bill on resolution of financial firms is to be introduced in this session of parliament. It has been decided to abolish Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in 2017-18.
-Digital India – “Bhim” app will unleash mobile phone revolution - two new schemes will be implemented to promote the app- 1.  Referral bonus for users and 2. Cash back for traders.
-Head post office as the central office for rendering passport services
-Easy online booking system will be put in place for the Army and defence personnel.
-For big-time offences - including economic offenders fleeing India, the govt. will introduce a legislative change or new law to confiscate the assets of these people within the country

TAXATION

-Existing rate of taxation for individual assesses between income of `2.5 lakhs to 5 lakhs reduced to 5% from the present rate of 10%.All other categories of taxpayers in subsequent brackets will get a benefit of Rs 12,500.

-Surcharge of 10% of tax payable on categories of individuals whose annual taxable income is between `50 lakhs and ` 1 crore.

-Under the corporate tax, in order to make MSME companies more viable, there is a proposal to reduce tax for small companies with a turnover of upto Rs 50 crore to 25%.

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

-The Income Tax Act to be amended  to ensure that no transaction above Rs 3 lakh is permitted in cash.

-Employees investing in NPS through their company can withdraw upto 25% of their contribution -without paying tax.

-To prevent money laundering and curb black money, finance minister has proposed to consider only those transactions of capital gains on which securities transaction tax (STT) is paid.

Income	Tax rate
Individual taxpayers
Up to Rs 2,50,000	No tax
Rs 2,50,001 to Rs 5,00,000	5%
Rs 5,00,001 – 10,00,000	20%
More than Rs 10,00,000	30%

RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

-With the highest ever allocation under MGNREGA of Rs.48,000 crore and the total allocation for Rural, Agriculture and Allied sectors is 187223 crores, the central government has proposed the following :.
-Agricultural sector is expected to grow at 4.1 per cent this fiscal, says Jaitley.
-A sum of Rs. 10 lakh crore is allocated as credit to farmers, with 60 days interest waiver.
Government will set up mini labs in Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soil testing.
Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund to be set up in NABARD with an amount of Rs.2000 crores and this amount will be increased to Rs.8000 crores over a period of 3 years.
Through this budget, government aims to bring 1crore households out of poverty and to make 50,000 gram panchayats poverty free by 2019.
Irrigation corpus has been increased from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore.
During 2017-18, five lakh farm ponds will be be taken up under the MGNREGA.
Government will take steps to ensure participation in MGNREGA of women up to 55%
Mason training will be provided to 5 lakh persons by 2022.

YOUTH

-To improve the skillset among youth, government will introduce a system of measuring annual learning outcomes and come out with an innovation fund for secondary education.
-This year focus will be on 3,479 educationally-backward blocks.
-Colleges will be identified based on accreditation.
-Skill India mission was launched to maximise potential.
- Will set up 100 India International centres across the country.
-Courses on foreign languages will be introduced considering the current wave of globalisation.
-To promote the post graduation in country, government has decided to take steps to create 5000 PG seats per annum.

INFRASTRUCTURE

-For transportation sector as a whole, including railroads, shipping, provision of Rs.2,41,387 crores has been made.  
-Unmanned level crossings on Broad Gauge lines will be eliminated by 2020
-Railway lines of 3,500 kms will be commissioned in 2017-18. Five-hundred railway stations will be made differently-abled friendly.
-High speed Internet to be allocated to 1,50,000 gram panchayats.
-In the road sector, Budget allocation for highways increased from ` 57,976 crores in BE 2016-17 to ` 64,900 crores in 2017-18
-By the end of 2017-18, high speed broadband connectivity on optical fibre will be available in more than 1,50,000 gram panchayats, under BharatNet. A DigiGaon initiative will be launched to provide tele-medicine, education and skills through digital technology
-Proposed to set up strategic crude oil reserves at 2 more locations, namely, Chandikhole in Odisha and Bikaner in Rajasthan. This will take our strategic reserve capacity to 15.33 MMT  Second phase of -Solar Park development to be taken up for additional 20,000 MW capacity.
-A new and restructured Central scheme with a focus on export infrastructure, namely, Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES) will be launched in 2017-18  

HEALTH

-Undertaking the poor condition of women in our country, Rs. 500 crore have been allocated for Mahila Shakthi Kendras.
-Under a nationwide scheme for pregnant women, Rs. 6000 will be transferred to each person.
-A big fight against tuberculosis announced. Elimination of tuberculosis by 2025 targeted.
-Health sub centres, numbering 1.5 lakh, will be transformed into health wellness centres.
-To increase the reach of high class facilities provided by government, two AIIMS will be set up in Jharkhand and Gujarat.
-In the wake of Digital india, Aadhaar-based smartcards will be issued to senior citizens to monitor health.

DEMONETISATION

-Deposits between ₹2 lakh and ₹80 lakh was made in 1.09 crore accounts.
-No cash transaction above ₹ 3 Lakhs will be permitted.
-The Government will launch two new schemes to promote the usage of BHIM; these are,Referral

-Bonus Scheme for individuals and a Cashback Scheme for merchants
-Aadhar Pay, a merchant version of Aadhar Enabled Payment System, will be launched shortly
-A Mission will be set up with a target of 2,500 crore digital transactions for 2017-18 through UPI, USSD, Aadhar Pay, IMPS and debit cards
-A proposal to mandate all Government receipts through digital means,beyond a prescribed limit, is under consideration
-Banks have targeted to introduce additional 10 lakh new POS terminals by March 2017.

ENERGY SECTOR

-A strategic policy for crude reserves will be set up.

-Rs. 1.26,000 crore received as energy production based investments.

-Trade infra export scheme will be launched 2017-18.

FUNDING OF POLITICAL PARTIES

-In order to improve the transparency in funding of political parties,the maximum amount of cash donation for a political party will be Rs. 2,000 from any one source.
-To stop the inflow of black money into funding,  political parties will be entitled to receive donations by cheque or digital mode from donors.
-An amendment is being proposed to the RBI Act to enable issuance of electoral bonds .
-These bonds will be purchased from banks or post offices through cheque or digital transactions. They can be redeemed only by registered political parties.

Sources

http://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/Highlights-of-Union-Budget-2017-18/article17127298.ece
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/56907865.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
https://www.google.co.in/amp/amp.ibtimes.co.in/union-budget-2017-fm-arun-jaitley-gives-income-tax-breaks-common-man-burdens-high-earners-714380
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/economy/live-budget-2017-many-sectors-still-grapplingdemonetisation-says-jefferies_8387981.html