Budget statement 2018
On 1st February 2018, when the Finance Minister presented the last budget of Central Government’s present term, persons from all strata’s of the society expected the Government to dole-out some benefits for themselves, before the Government goes out to polls next year to seek mandate for another term. In Prime-Minister’s own words, by Budget proposals, the Government has sought to improve “Ease of Living” alongwith “Ease of Doing Business” in India. In this budget, the Government has kept its focus and a lot of emphasis on uplifting the poor, rural sector, health, education, farmers, senior citizens, employment generation, infrastructure development and digital economy. The spending by the Government has been majorly earmarked for improvement of railway infrastructure, roads, sanitation & hygiene, healthcare, rural development, water supply, etc. To partly fund its spending, the Government kept some onus on itself by keeping a disinvestment target for FY 2018-19 at INR 80,000 crore and not merely relied on tax collections.
One of the most ambitious schemes announced by the Government in the Budget is National Health Protection Scheme providing health insurance of 5 lakhs per family to the 10 crore poor families. Taking an average of 5 members per family, this health insurance scheme is likely to benefit 50 crore Indians approximately, i.e. 38% of India’s total population. With increased Minimum Support Price for crops and linking it to the cost of production (150% of cost) for farmers, the Government has put another step forward to double farmers’ income by 2022 when India celebrates its 75th year of independence. Several other steps announced to improve the agriculture & rural sector and to improve living conditions include setting up Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and Agricultural Produce Market Committees (“APMCs”), extending facility of Kisan Credit Cards to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers to help them meet their working capital needs, setting up a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry, with a combined total Corpus of these two new Funds of Rs. 10,000 crores. In order to improve infrastructure in rural sector, the Government has increased spending on rural roads, electricity connection, sanitation, housing & education.
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