India

Budget 2018 Live updates: Finance Minister begins his address

Budget 2018 Live updates: Finance Minister begins his address

There are a lot of expectations with the Budget 2018, but as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated, people shouldn’t expect too much populist concessions in the Budget this time. Still, as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is about to reach Parliament, there is palpable expectations about his speech at 11 am. Meanwhile, the markets have opened positively, with Nifty in green and the mid-caps are in red. It will also be interesting if the budget favors the populist mindset, which could help in elections next year, or it goes in the more modest route of giving less to the people, with fiscal deficts. Another thing to keep an eye on will be if there will be any opportunities for the expanding the number of jobs available to the youth, as Modi had previously promised to give jobs to 10 million people.

People are also expecting the budget to have something for the rural people, although, the FICCI President Rashesh Shah has said that budget doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be about populist interests only.

12.46 (IST): There will be  increase in the custom duty on mobiles from 15% to 20% and on some other mobile parts up to 15%, and some parts of TVs to 15%.

12.45 (IST): There has also been increase in the health and education cess to 4%

12. 43 (IST): There has also been proposition to tax long term capital gains exceeded Rs 1 lakh in listed stock at 10%.

12.38 (IST): Rs 50,000 additional benefit will be granted to the senior citizens for investment in mediclaim.

12.35 (IST): A standard deduction of additional Rs 40,000 for salaried employees. This move will benefit 2.5 crore taxpayers.

12.34 (IST): No changes in the structure of income tax of individuals.

12.33 (IST): Rs 7000 crore will be the revenue foregone for the reduced corporate tax on MSMEs.

12.32 (IST): I propose to extend the benefit of the reduced corporate rate of 25% for companies with reported turnover of up to Rs 250 crore.

12.28 (IST)100% tax deduction for the first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs. 100 crore and above.

12.24 (IST): The amount for the 2017-18: Expenditure bill is Rs 21.57 lakh crore, with a Fiscal deficit 3.5% for 2017-18.

12.19 (IST): There will be an automatic revision of MPs’ emoluments every five years, and which will be indexed to inflation.

12.19 (IST): The salaries of President, Vice President and Governor are also being revised: Rs 5 lakh; 4 lakh; Rs 3.5 lakh per month respectively.

12.17 (IST): There will be recapitalisation to enable PSU banks to give Rs 5 lakh crore.

12.14 (IST): The government insurance companies will be mixed into a single entity, and subsequently listed in the stock exchange, as part of the disinvestment programme.

12.13 (IST): The government will be assigning every enterprise in India a unique ID on the lines of Aadhaar.

12.06 (IST): The government proposes to revamp the system of sanctioning of loans to SMEs. The information required for sanctioning the loan will be linked with GSTN and all required information can be fetched from GSTN Portal. It will help to grant the loans quickly and will help in reducing processing time.

12.05 (IST): The UDAN is going to connect 56 unserved airports in India.

12.04 (IST): An institute at Vadodara is going to train people for the bullet train programme.

12.02 (IST): AMRUT programme will be focused on water supply to all households in 500 cities. Water supply contracts for 494 projects are worth 19,428 core awarded.

12.01 (IST): Rs 1,48,528 crore is the capital expenditure for the Indian Railways for 2018-19… All trains to be progressively provided with WiFi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities.

12.01 (IST): Bharatmala project approved for better road connectivity at Rs 5.35 lakh crore.

11.59 (IST): Proposal to develop 10 prominent tourist destinations as Iconic tourism destinations.

11.51 (IST): 70 lakh farming jobs have been formed this year.

11.50 (IST): Rs 3 lakh crore have been given for PM MUDRA Yojana.

11.49 (IST): Threre will be slow but steady coverage of health issues.

11.49 (IST): There has also been an announcement of allocation of Rs. 56,619 crore for SC the welfare and Rs. 39,135 crore for the ST welfare.

11.49 (IST): Healthcare stocks have been trading higher after the government said it proposed to cover 100 million families via healthcare protection scheme. Apollo Hospital Ltd rose 4.1%, Thyrocare Technologies Ltd 2.6%, Healthcare Global Enterprises Ltd rose 3%.

11.48 (IST):There will be a  Mass formalization of MSME sector after demonetization and GST.

11.46 (IST): A Total 187 projects have been approved under the Namami Gange programme.

11.44 (IST): Rs 600 crore will be given to provide nutritional support to TB patients.

11.43 (IST): There will be one medical college per every three constituency.

11.41 (IST): They have decided to take healthcare protection to a new level. A flagship National Health Protection Scheme will be launched to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families,that will give them the benefit of 50 crore.

11.40 (IST): Rs 1200 crore for the flagship programme in health wellness centres.

11.36 (IST): Schemes will be launched that will help to revitalise research-based education with Rs 1 lakh crore in the next four years.

11.35 (IST): There will be Integrated B.Ed programme to be for teachers, that will help in improving quality of teachers.

11.33 (IST): Technology is going to be the biggest driver in improving education.

11.32 (IST): Rs 14.34 lakh crore will be granted to provide for the livelihood to rural India through the help of infrastructure building.

11.31 (IST): Loans will be granted to self help groups, and will be will increasde to Rs 75,000 crore by March 2019.

11.30 (IST): The governement has a goal, that by 2022, all poor people will have a house in which they can live.

11.23 (IST): Grameen Agricultural Market (GRAM) will be implented to provide farmers a way through which they can sell fodder directly to buyers.

11.23 (IST): A sum of Rs 500 crore has been announced for Operation Green.

11.22 (IST): There is also allocation to food processing ministry, and it is being doubled from Rs 715 crore to Rs 1400 crore.

11.21 (IST): A Cluster-model approach will be implented for agricultural production.

11.20 (IST): The focus is on low-cost farming, higher MSP. The focus is on developing farm and non-farm employment for the farmers.

11:09 (IST): Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has begun his address, and has said that this time, the budget is going to focus on the betterment of rural and agricultural economies.

10:33 (IST): Finance Minister is going to address the budget in Hindi language this time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached Parliament.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has reached the Parliament, and there are a lot of expectations about the” acche din” that the Prime Minister had promised. Farmers are expected to get some kind of relief, as the prominence of suicide and the hardships that they have to go through each year.

 

About the author

Abhishek Rana

Since my early childhood, I’ve loved writing, watching movies and having an opinion. Now, I do it professionally. Always looking for new ways to challenge myself.

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