Indian govt bringing better social services

Although the Indian Union Budget 2018, presented a couple of days ago by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, aims at achieving over eight per cent growth by propelling manufacturing, services and exports, factors like slow economic growth, tough fiscal situation and farm distress might make the envisaged targets a little difficult to achieve.

According to Indian media, their country has launched the world's largest government-funded healthcare programme. The Flagship National Healthcare protection scheme, with approximately 50 crore beneficiaries, has proposed an allocation of up to Rs5 lakh (Rs0.5m) per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. The government of Premier Narenda Modi, through its fifth and last full budget, is currently faced with a challenging fiscal situation as the fiscal deficit is 3.5 per cent of GDP.

The fiscal deficit is projected to be 3.3 per cent of GDP in the next fiscal. During fiscal 2017, as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley revealed, 85.51 lakh (8.551 million) new tax payers filed income tax returns and growth in direct taxes (till January 2015) is stated to be 18.7 per cent.

The government says it will extend a Corporate Tax of 25 per cent to companies with turnover up to Rs2.5 billion.

India's agricultural production is at a record high level today with some 275 million tonne food grains and 300 million tonne fruits and vegetable being produced in the country. While the government plans to construct 20 million toilets in next fiscal year, it thinks it can provide housing for all by 2022.

About 5.1 million houses have been constructed in rural areas and five million in urban areas. India plans to build 10 million houses in rural areas. The country aims to move from black board to digital board schools by 2022 and plans to build 1.5 lakh centres in a bid to provide health facilities closer to home.

An amount of Rs1.2 billion will be allocated for this programme. The state aims to provide half a million WiFi HotSpots with Broadband access to 50 million rural citizens, at the cost of Rs 10,000 crore.

Emoluments for Indian president has been set at Rs5 lakh per month, and proposes a salary package of Rs4 lakh for Vice President and Rs3.5 lakh for all state governors. Senior citizens will get Rs50,000 per annum exemption for medical insurance, besides income tax exemptions.

The Customs duty on crude edible vegetable oils like groundnut oil, safflower seed oil will be hiked from 12.5 per cent to 30 per cent; and on refined edible vegetable oil from 20 per cent to 35 per cent. Customs duty on sunglasses, cigarette lighter, toys, bus and truck tyres, select furniture has been hiked.

Customs duty on imitation jewellery has been hiked from 15 per cent to 20 per cent; doubled on all watches to 20 per cent. The Import duty on LCD/LED/OLED panels, parts of TVs has been hiked to 15 per cent; duty on smart watches, wearable devices, footwear doubled to 20 per cent.

The government proposes to launch a restructured bamboo mission with a fund of Rs 1.2 billion. Agricultural credit target has been increased from Rs8.5 lakh crore (Rs8.5 trillion) to Rs11 lakh core (Rs11 trillion).

About 40 million poor people will get power connection and government will spend Rs16,000 crore on this scheme. In 2018-19, ministries will be able to spend Rs14.34 lakh crores (14.34 trillion) for creation of livelihood in rural areas.

The government proposes Rs9,975 crore for social security schemes for the next fiscal year and intends to spend Rs600 crore allocated for tuberculosis patients, at the rate Rs500 per month during the course of their treatment.

There will be one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies, with 24 new government medical colleges also being envisioned. The excise duty on unbranded diesel has been cut by Rs2 to Rs6.33 per litre, while this levy has also been slashed on unbranded petrol by Rs2 rupees to Rs4.48 per litre.

All railway stations with footfall of greater than 25,000 will have escalators and 4,267 unmanned railway crossing in broad gauge will be removed in two years. An amount of Rs11,000 crore has been earmarked for Mumbai rail network and Rs17,000 crore for the Bengaluru metro.

About 150 km of additional suburban railway networks will be set up in Bengaluru at the cost of Rs17,000 crore. The Authority of India has 124 airports. The government has proposed to increase the number by at least five times to facilitate one billion trips a year.

For this purpose, Rs600 million has been allocated to kickstart the initiative. On the technology front, allocation to Digital India scheme has been doubled to Rs3,073 crore. Government will take measures to stop Cryptocurrency circulation, as it is not considered legal tender.

The defence outlay raised to Rs2.82 lakh crore (Rs2.82 trillion) in 2018-19 from Rs2.67 lakh crore in current year and food subsidy will rise to Rs1.69 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs1.4 lakh crore in current year.