Presenting her second Budget in eight months, Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman today said that this Budget will boost income and purchasing power of Indians. She said that the government has plans to follow a 16-point action plan to help the farmers and rural growth. She also said that the current Budget aims to meet the hopes and aspirations of all sections of the society.
Keep tracking this space for all the key highlights from Budget 2020:
* This is the Budget to boost income and purchasing power of Indians, says Sitharaman.
* This Budget is woven around three prominent themes: Aspirational India; Economic Development for All; A Caring Society
* Aspirational India: Agriculture– 16 action points to aid farmers
* Govt will help 20 lakh farmers for setting up solar pumps.
* Farm market needs to be liberalized.
*Expand PM Kusum scheme to 20 lakh farmers.
*Propose to change incentive scheme for use of chemical fertilisers.
* Will help 15 lakh farmers to set up solar sets.
* Krishi udan scheme for agri exports.
* Zero Budget farming focus of the government.
* Viability gap funding for setting up warehouses.
* Rs 2.83 lakh crore allocated to agriculture and irrigation
* Rs 1.23 for Rural development and Panchayti Raj
* Agri credit target raised to Rs 15 lakh crore from Rs 12 lakh crore.
* Milk processing capacity to be doubled to 108 tonne from 53 tonne.
* Nabard refinance schemes to be expanded.
* MGNREGS to be used to develop fodder farm.
* Proliferation of technologies such as analytics, machine learning, Artifial Intelligence, bioinformatics and number of people in productive age group at its highest, point out two cross-cutting developments.
* Sitharaman cites a peom — Pyara Watan.
* Budget aims to meet hopes and aspirations of all the sections of the society.
* Govt has taken several steps to formalisation of economy.
* Govt wants to improve the life of the people through Rs 100 lakh crore infrastructure pipeline projects.
*FM terms GST as historic structural reform; says it integrated country economically
* GST has resulted in efficiency gains in transport and logistics sector, inspector raj has vanished, it has benefitted MSME Consumers who have got a annual benefit of Rs 1 lakh crore by GST.
* 6 million new taxpayers have been added.
* Average household now saves nearly 4% more on the monthly basis after implementation of GST.
* Govt says aim is to achieve seamless delivery of services through digital governance.
* GST resulted in Rs 1 lakh crore gains to consumers, removed inspector raj and helped transport sector.
* India uplifted 271 million people out of poverty.
* India is now 5th largest economy in world.Central Govt debt reduced to 48.7% of GDP from 52.2 per cent in March 2014.
* We shall strive to bring ease of living for every citizen.
* 7.4% growth surpassed in 2014-19 with average inflation of 4.5%.
*During 2014-19, govt brought paradigm shift in governance.
* Fundamentals of economy strong, inflation well contained, banks cleaned up accumulated loans.
*Finance Minister lists out welfare schemes like affordable housing scheme, DBT and Ayushman Bharat
Source : Times of India