Budget 2018: Here are the live updates with latest pictures from Asianet Newsable

• This is the first budget in India said to be presented in Hindi
• This is the fifth budget  presented by the NDA government
• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan
• Lok Sabha mourns death of BJP MP from Palghar, Chintaman Vanga
• Post the Cabinet meeting, the Budget session will begin, shortly

Budget 2018 live updates in Pictures: Arun Jaitley meets President Kovind

• Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan addresses the Parliament
• FM Arun Jaitley beings his address on Budget 2018
• Arun Jaitley starts the budget speech in English and then switches to Hindi
• Revised fiscal deficit target of 3.5% of GDP at Rs 5.95 lakh crore for the current fiscal and 3.3 percent for FY19

 

SPEECH

• India to be the fifth largest economy soon, currently India is a $ 2.5 Trillion economy
• India will grow from 7.2% to 7.5% soon, says the Finance Minister
• Taxation base increased
• Govt to substantially increase allocation under national livelihood mission to Rs 5,750 cr in next fiscal

 

COSTLY

• Mobile phones to be costly; Custom duty on mobile phones increased to 20% from 15%
• Price increased on TVs
•  

CHEAPER

• Cashew nuts; Customs duty on raw cashew cut form 5 pc to 2.5 pc
• Footwear
• Healthcare for poor
• Leather products

 

AGRICULTURE

• Focus on improving Agriculture facilities, conditions
• Direct Benefit Transfer is the biggest in the world
• 2000 crore infrastructure fund for farm, agriculture
• 470 APMCs linked to ENAM
• Rs 1,400 crore allocation for food processing 
• Fisheries, animal husbandry sectors also to get Kisan Credit Cards
• Rs 11,000 crore allocation for fisheries and aqua culture
• Rs 1,290 crore allotted for bamboo sector
• Krishi Yojana allocation doubled
• Export of agriculture commodities will be liberalised 

 

EDUCATION

• 18 new schools for architecture
• Under RTE, lakhs of untrained teachers to be trained to help improve quality of education
• 24  new medical colleges, at least 1 mediacl college for three constituencies
• Scheme for revitalising school infrastructure, with an allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore over four years. RISE - Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education
• PM research fellows: Govt will identify 1000 Btech students each year and provide them means to pursue PHDs in IITs and IISc
• Rs 1.35 crore allocation for health, education and social welfare in 2018-19
• By 2022, every block with more than 50 per cent ST population and at least 20,000 tribal people will have 'Ekalavya' school on par with Navodaya Vidyalas
• No more education cess on imported goods. Will be replaced by social welfare surcharge of 10%

 

HEALTHCARE

• Rs 1,200 crore for health and wellness centres
• Free drugs and diagnostic services for all, 10 crore families to be covered
• Rs 5 lakh per anum healthcare for 50 crore Indians
• 1.5 lakh new healthcare centres
• Rs 600 crore for TB patients
• Senior citizens allowed Rs 50,000 deduction on health insurance premium paid in a year from earlier Rs 30,000
•  

 

INDUSTRY

• Rs 3794 crore for Medium, Small and Micro industries
• Rs 3 lakh crore for MUDRA Scheme for 2018-19
• Govt to allocate Rs 7,140 crore for textiles sector
• All enterprises will be given Aadhaar like unique ID's
• Government assures 50% Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers, promises to double MSP by 2020

 

EMPLOYMENT

• Incentives for women employees
• Government contributing 8.33 % towards EPF 
• Paid maternity leaves increased to 26 weeks
• EPF women contribution reduced to 8% from 12%
• Emoluments for President set at Rs 5 lakh, Rs 4 lakh for Vice President, Rs 3.5 lakh for governors

 

INFRASTRUCTURE-ENERGY

• 4 crore homes to get free electricity
• 51 lakh new houses to be built
• 1 crore houses under PMAY  
• 9,000 km National Highways to be completed in 2018-19
• Rs 40,000 crore for expansion of Mumbai transport
• Rs 17,000 crore for Bengaluru Metro in Karnataka
• Airport capacity to be hiked to handle 1 billion trips every year
• Regional air connectivity scheme to connect 56 unserved airports
• Government will bring out an industry-friendly defence production policy in 2018
• 5 lakh WiFi hotspots to provide broadband access to 5 cr rural people
• Divestment target Rs 80,000 crore for FY 2019
• Centre plans to construct two crore more toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission
• Surplus power produced by solar-powered generators used by farmers will be bought by state distribution utilities
• Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for rural infrastructure
• Housing for all by 2022, 1 crore houses to be built under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in rural areas

 

DOMESTIC

• 8 crore families to get free LPG connection

HOUSING

• Govt to reduce hardships faced in realty deals
• No adjustment to be made in case circle rate does not exceed 5 pc of sale consideration

 

RAILWAYS

• 1.48 lakh crores allocated to Railways
• 3,6000 kms under track renewal
• Railways capex pegged at Rs 1.48 lakh crore. Last year it was Rs 1.31 lakh crores.
• Re-development of 600 major railway stations
• All trains will be progressively provided with Wi-Fi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities
• Over Rs 1.48 lakh crore to be allocated for railways in next fiscal
• Suburban network of 160 km planned for Bengaluru

 

TOURISM

• 10 prominent tourist sites to be developed as iconic tourist spots

 

GOLD/SILVER rates

• SILVER RDY Rs 39,300.00 Per KG
• GOLD(24-carat) RDY  Rs 30,870 PER 10 Grams
• GOLD(22-carat) RDY  Rs 29,290 PER 10 Grams
• Govt to formulate a comprehensive gold policy to develop gold as an asset class; gold monetisation scheme to be
  revamped

 

FINANCE/ECONOMY/MONEY

• Government will take all measures to curb use of crypto-currencies like bitcoin
• Govt will evolve a scheme to assign a Unique ID for companies
• Increase in salary for parliamentarians, automatic revise of salaries for MP every 5 years 
• Law to regulate salaries for MPs
• Additional 90,000 crore collected by the Income Tax
• To provide RBI an instrument to deal with excess liquidity, RBI Act and other laws being amended
• Number of taxpayers have increase from 6.4 crore to 8.27 crore

 

TAX

• Tax: Status quo maintained for salaried class
• Personal income tax unchanged
• Standard deduction increased to Rs 40,000 in medical insurance from Rs 15,000 for salaried class
• Long term capital tax to be 10% for amount above Rs 1 lakh
• Health and Education cess increased to 4%
• Incentives for senior citizens: Exemption on interest income to be increased from Rs 10000 to Rs 50,000. Applies to all fixed deposit scheme
• Sensex tanks over 300 pts after FM announces 10 pc tax on some long-term capital gains from equity market

 

WELFARE/MISCELLANEOUS

• Centre earmarks Rs 150 cr to commemorate 150 years of birth of Mahatma Gandhi
• Expenditure for 2017-18 pegged at Rs 21.57 lakh crore, as against Rs 21.8 lakh cr previously estimated
• Jaitley announces allocation of Rs 56,619 crore for SC welfare and Rs. 39,135 crore for ST welfare