BUDGET 2018
Finance
Minister Arun
Jaitley delivered
this government's fifth and last full Budget amid subdued economic growth,
challenging fiscal situation and farm distress. What makes it all the more
important is the upcoming elections in eight states this year and the General
Election next year, all of which put tough demands on it.
He
announced two new initiatives under the Ayushman Bharat Programme in the Union Budget 2018.
Under
the programme, Mr. Jaitley
announced a new flagship National Health Protection Scheme, providing a health
insurance cover of ₹5
lakh a family
per annum.
The scheme will cover 10 crore vulnerable families, with approximately
50 crore
beneficiaries.
“We
are slowly progressing towards universal health coverage,” Mr. Jaitley said,
adding that the scheme would be the “world’s largest healthcare
programme”.
Mr. Jaitley also
announced the creation of health and wellness centres, which will “bring healthcare
closer to home”. These centres, 1.5 lakh in number, will provide free essential
drugs and diagnostic services. A sum of Rs. 1200 crore had
been allocated for this.
Also,
trading on bitcoin
exchanges surged on Thursday and Friday after the finance minister said in his
February 1 Budget speech that cryptocurrencies weren't legal tender.
Exchange servers were said to have ground to a near halt on both days due to
the sudden spurt in transactions, although the platforms themselves said things
had settled down after the initial panic. Moreover, as per the 'Ujjwala Yojna'
and 'Saubhagya Yojna' proposed by Jaitely, more than five lakh women in
the rural areas across the country will get free LPG gas and electricity by the
2022.
Rs
21.57 lakh
crores have
been transferred as net GST to states against a projectile of Rs 21.47
lakh crores, while
no personal income tax changes were proposed in the budget.
It was
also announced that long term capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh will be
taxed at 10% without indexing.
Customs
duty on certain products, such as mobile phones and televisions has been
increased, to provide a fillip to ‘Make in India’.
The
budget also included various reforms in the education, health and
infrastructure sectors.
All we
hope is that these reforms help the economy grow in a way that is beneficial
for all sections of society.
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