BUDGET 2017: HIGHLIGHTS

Here are the highlights of the budget speech by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley:

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

Demonetisation impact on economy is not likely to spill over into the next fiscal,

* Three major initiatives

1. - Advance the date of budget presentation to prevent vote-on-account budget, to enable proper planning and evaluation.
2. - Merger of railway and general budget - A good bye to
3. - Do Away with plan and non-plan classification - to facilitate optimum allocation of funds.

* Transform, Energise and Clean India (TEC) are the three major focal areas

Rural Thurst

Spend more in rural areas, infra, poverty alleviation, while maintaining fiscal prudence as guiding principle of Budget

• With better monsoon, agriculture is expected to grow at 4.1% in current year, says Arun Jaitley.
• Govt will set up mini lab in Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soil testing.
• Rs 9000 crore for crop insurance scheme.
• A dedicated micro irrigation fund will be set up for NABARD with Rs 5,000 cr initial corpus.
• Govt to integrate farmers who grow fruits with agro processing units.
• Long-term Irrigation Fund corpus at Nabard to go up to Rs 40000 crore from Rs 20000 crore.
• Dairy processing infrastructure fund will be set up under NABARD, with fund of Rs 8,000 crore.
• 50,000 gram panchayats to be made poverty free by 2019.
• Cabinet extends tenure of loans under Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana from 15 to 20 years
• Budget allocation to MNREGA increased to a record Rs 48,000 crore for 2017-18, from Rs 37,000 crore in 2016-17
• Budgetary allocation to PM gramin awaas yojna to beRs 23000 crore in 2017-18. 1 crore households to be brought out of poverty under Antodya Scheme. Rs 27,000 cr on to be spend on PMGSY; 1 cr houses to be completed by 2017-18 for houseless.
• Target of agriculture credit fixed at Rs 10 lakh cr in 2017-18
• Rs 9,000 cr higher allocation for payment of sugarcane arrears
• 133-km road per day constructred under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana as against 73-km in 2011-14
• The allocation for rural agriculture and allied sectors in 2017-18 is a record Rs 1,81,223 crore
• The allocation for rural agriculture and allied sectors in 2017-18 is a record Rs 1,81,223 crore
• Under BharatNet, by 2017, high-speed broadband to reach 1.5 lakh gram panchayats