Union Finance Budget 2008-09 HIGHLIGHTS!

Highlights of the Union Finance Budget as it is being presented by Mr. P. Chitambaram :

• One time settlement agreement offered to other farmers with loans overdue on Dec 31, 2007 with a 25% discount
• Loan waiver amounts to 4% of total bank loans
• India registers growth of over 8% for 12 successive quarters till Dec 2007
• Focus on management of supply side of food, market, capital inflows next year
• Keeping inflation under check to be on focus
• NRHM to get Rs 1,250 cr budgetary allocation
• Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna for 30,000 workers in organised sector in BPL category
• Two national institutes and 8 regional centres and one department of generatics in each state to be set up with an outlay of Rs 400 cr
• The remuneration Angan Bari workers has been increased from Rs 1000 cr-1500 cr per month
• NREGS to be extended to 596 rural distt with an outlay of Rs 16,000cr
• IT industry gets Rs 100 cr for connecting knowledge institutions
• Rs 200 cr for providing portable water system in each school in areas of water scarce regions
• Sanitation to get Rs 1,200 crore
• NE region to continue getting special attention
• Rajiv Gandhi drinking water mission to get Rs 7,300 cr
• 288 public sector bank branches to be opened in areas with concentration of minorities
• 54 departments to be set up gender budgeting divisions
• Child related schemes to get Rs 33,434 cr
• Schemes for woman to get Rs 1,460 cr this fiscal
• Allocation for ministry of minorities doubled to Rs 1,000 cr
• Mobilisation of additional resources of Rs 10,000 cr as planned capex under Plan-B
• LIC to cover all woman SHGs linked to the bank
• Agri credit target to be Rs 2,80,000 cr for 2008-09
• Micro irrigation scheme gets Rs 500 cr to cover 4,00,000 additional hectares
• Agriculture share in total investment up from 10.2% in 2003-04 to 16% during the 11th Plan
• Schedule Commercial Banks farm credit 75%
• Govt sets up irrigation and water resource finance corp with an initial corpus of Rs 100 cr
• National Horticulure Mission to get Rs 1,100 cr
• 500 soil testing labs to be set up in 11th plan, govt to give 1 time budgetary assistance of Rs 75 cr to agri ministry for settingt up mobile soil testing facilities
• Tea Research association gets Rs 20 cr
• National Agri Insurance scheme get Rs 640 cr
• Special purpose tea fund gets Rs 40 cr
• Debt waiver scheme and relief to small and marginal farmers
• Agri loans disbursed by rural banks, RRBs and Cooperative banks before March 2007 and overdue on Dec 2007 waived
• Marginal farmers holding 1 hectare land and small farmers holding upto 2 hectares of land to be waived
• Loan waiver amounts to 4% of total bank loans
• One time settlement agreement offered to other farmers with loans overdue on Dec 31, 2007 with a 25% discount
• Agri loans restructured in 2004-06 under special packages to be waived
• States urged to open bidding for 5 more ultra mega power projects
• All 30 integrated textile parks approved
• Rs 340 cr insurance scheme to cover 17 lakh farmers and weavers
• SITP gets 450 crore
• Rs 275 cr earmarked for state data centres
• NHDP allocation up from Rs 10,866 cr to Rs 12,966 cr
• Move towards nutrient-based fertiliser subsidy stressed
• National fund for transmission and distribution reforms for power sector
• FDI in Apr-Dec at $12.7 billion, FII inflow over $18 billion
• OTS to cost govt Rs 10,000 cr
• Farmer loan waiver to cost govt Rs 50,000 cr
• Overdue agri loans amount to Rs 50,000 cr under the waiver and 10,000 cr under the OTS
• 3 cr small and marginal farmers and 1 cr other farmers to be covered under the waiver and one time settlement scheme
• Govt asks commmercial banks to add 250 rural household accounts every year in rural and semi-urban banks
• States urged to open bidding for 5 more ultra mega power projects
• National housing bank gets Rs 1,200 cr for refinancing
• NABARD gets Rs 5,000 cr fund for refinancing
• SIDBI gets 2 funds of Rs 2,000 cr
• Requiremnet of PAN extended to all financial transactions
• Coal regulator to be established
• Rs 450 crore provision for textile parks
• Exchange traded forex, rate derivative market to be launched
• PAN to be sole identification in securities market
• 300 more ITIs to be upgraded with an investment of Rs 750 cr
• 22 Sainik schools get Rs 44 crore
• Haryana and Chandigarh to introduce smart card based delivery systen under PDS
• Revenue Deficit is Rs 55,184 cr at 1% of GDP and fiscal deficit is Rs 1,33,287 cr at 3.1% of GDP
• Estimated planned expenditure at Rs 2,43,086 cr and non-panned expenditure Rs 57,409 cr
• Central Plans Scheme monitoring system under Plan Panel to be unveiled
• Commonwealth games allocation Rs 624 crore
• One time grant of Rs 50 cr to National Tiger Conservation Authority
• Special grant of Rs 100 cr to 3 institutes of excellence
• Sixth Pay Commission report by March 31
• Defence allocation up by 10% from Rs 96,000 cr to Rs 1,56,000 cr
• 3 new schemes for unorganised sector workers social security
• PAN to be sole identification in securities market
• Exchange traded forex, rate derivative market to be launched
• Custom duty on vitamin pre-mixes to lower from 30% to 20%
• Set-top boxes to become cheaper
• Custom duty on steel scrapped
• Custom duty on some bulk drugs cut from 10% to 5%
• Import duty on Naptha restructured
• Phosphoric acid custom duty reduced to 5%
• CENVAT rates reduced from 16% to 14% on all goods
• Excise duty on small cars reduced from 16% to 12%
• Anti-Aids drug exempted from excise duty
• No excise duty on refrigerating equipments
• Bulk Cement to attract 400 per metric tonnes or 14% at adveloram, whichever is higher
• Excise on packaged softwares to lower from 8% to 12%
• Excise duty on pharma goods reduced to 8%
• Two wheelers to cost less, excise duty reduced by 10%
• Money changers and people running gains of chance and tour operators to be brought under service tax net
• Filter and non-filter cigarettes to be brought at par
• Threshold limit of tax exemption increased from Rs 1,10,000 to Rs 1,50,000 for men
• Threshold tax exemption increased from Rs 1,45,000 to Rs 1,80,000 for women
• Senior citizens threshold tax limit increased from Rs 1,95,000 to Rs 2,25,000
• Direct taxation changes to be revenue neutral
• Revenue implication of Indirect taxation to be 5900 cr
• Govt withdraws banking transaction tax
• Central sales tax cut from 3% to 2%
• For income upto Rs 1,50,000 tax liability will be nil, between Rs 1,50,000 and Rs 3,00,000 tax liability will be 10% , from 3 lakh to 5 lakh tax liability will be 20%, from 5 lakh upwards it will be 30%
• No change in surcharge of corporate tax
• 5 year tax holiday for hospitals especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities
• 5 year tax holiday to 2,3& 4 star hotels in UNESCO declared heritage site areas
• Short term capital gains to be taxed at 15%
• Levy on STT only on option premiums
• Commodities transaction tax introduced similar to STT
• Direct taxation changes to be revenue neutral
• Revenue implication of Indirect taxation to be Rs 5900 crore
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