Budget India 2008 Highlights and Main Points

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday unveiled the much-awaited General Budget for the fiscal 2008-09 in the Parliament.

Here are the major highlights:
- Personal income tax exemption hiked to Rs 1.5 lakh
- Senior citizens threshold tax limit increased from Rs 1,95,000 to Rs 2,25,000
- Tax exemption for women increased to Rs 1.8 lakh
- New tax slabs: 10 per cent for 1,50,000 to 3,00,000, 20 per cent for 3,00,000 to 5,00,000 and 30 per cent above 5,00,000
- Excise on packaged softwares to be lower from 8% to 12%
- No excise duty on refrigerating equipments
- Anti-Aids drug exempted from excise duty
- Small cars to become cheaper
- Reduced excise duty on two, three wheelers
- Excise duty on hybrid cars cut from 24 pct to 14 pct
- Excise on small cars cut to 12 pct from 16 pct
- Rs 50 cr for tiger conservation
- Sixth Pay Commission report by March 2008
- Defence allocation up by 10% from Rs 96,000 cr to Rs 1,56,000 cr
- 22 Sainik schools get Rs 44 crore
- Rs 624 cr for Commonwealth Games
- PAN sole identification in securities market
- Debt waiver scheme and relief to small and marginal farmers
- Duty reduced on life saving drugs
- Rs 750 crore for upgradation of 300 ITIs in 25 districts.
- No change in peak customs duty
- Central sales tax cut from 3% to 2%
- Govt withdraws banking transaction tax
- Revenue implication of Indirect taxation to be 5900 cr
- Direct taxation changes to be revenue neutral
- Levy on STT only on option premiums
- Commodities transaction tax introduced like STT
- Short term capital gains to be taxed at 15%
- No change in surcharge of corporate tax
- Money changers and people running gains of chance and tour operators to be brought under service tax net
- 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
- Non-agri peak rates for customs raises to 10% from 2% in 2004
- Tax to GDP ratio at 9.2% in 2004 up by 12.5% in 2007-08
- Custom duty on steel scrapped
- Set-top boxes to become cheaper
- Custom duty on vitamin pre-mixes to lower from 30% to 20%
- Agri loans disbursed by rural banks, RRBs and Cooperative banks before March 2007 and overdue on Dec 2007 waived
- Overdue agri loans amount to Rs 50,000 cr under the waiver and Rs 10,000 cr under the one time settlement
- Implementation of waiver to be completed by June 2008
- Farmers eligible for fresh agri loans post the waiver or one time settlement
- Haryana and Chandigarh to introduce smart card based delivery system under PDS
- National Agri Insurance scheme get Rs 640 cr
- National Highway development program gets Rs 12966 cr
- Rs 8000 cr plan for faster power reforms
- National housing bank gets Rs 1,200 cr for refinancing
- Govt asks commercial 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
- All 30 integrated textile parks approved
- Rs 340 cr insurance scheme to cover 17 lakh farmers and weavers
- SITP gets Rs 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
- PNB says banks to be reimbursed accordingly
- Tea Research association gets Rs 20 cr
- 500 soil testing labs to be set up in the 11th plan, govt to give 1 time budgetary assistance of Rs 75 cr to agri ministry for setting up mobile soil testing facilities
- National Horticulure Mission to get Rs 1,100 cr
- Govt sets up irrigation and water resource finance corp with an initial corpus of Rs 100 cr
- Schedule Commercial Banks farm credit 75%
- Micro irrigation scheme gets Rs 500 cr to cover 4,00,000 additional hectares
- Rs 12050 cr for strengthening rural health services
- 24 pct allocation hike for women, child development
- Inflation will be kept under check
- Jawaharlal Navoday Vidyalaya to be set in 20 new districts for SC/STs
- Healthcare allocation to be raised by 15%
- Bhopal and Tripura to get one IIScR each and 2 colleges of art
- 3 IITs to be set up in Bihar, AP, Rajasthan
- 288 public sector bank branches to be opened in areas with concentration of minorities
- Irrigation outlay increased
- National Minority Development and Finance Corp to get Rs 75 cr
- Special attention, more funds for North East
- 54 gender budgeting cells set up
- Agriculture share in total investment up from 10.2% in 2003-04 to 16% during the 11th Plan
- Agri credit target to be Rs 2,80,000 cr for 2008-09
- LIC to cover all woman SHGs linked to the bank
- Mobilisation of additional resources of Rs 10,000 cr as planned capital expenditure under Plan-B
- Allocation for ministry of minorities doubled to Rs 1,000 cr
- Schemes for woman to get Rs 1,460 cr this fiscal
- Child related schemes to get Rs 33,434 cr
- 54 departments to be set up gender budgeting divisions
- Rajiv Gandhi drinking water mission to get Rs 7,300 cr
- Rs 3,966 cr for SC/STs schemes
- Allocation of Rs 75 cr for 2008-09 for the Rajiv Gandhi felicitation programme
- Sanitation to get Rs1,200 cr
- Rs 200 cr for providing portable water system in each school in areas of water scarce regions
- IT industry gets Rs 100 cr for connecting knowledge institutions
- NREGS to be extended to 596 rural distt with an outlay of Rs 16,000cr
- The remuneration Angan Bari workers has been increased from Rs 1000 cr-1500 cr per month
- Women entitled to equal share and equal say
- Science scholarships for young learners
- 16 Central universities to be set up
- 6000 model high schools to be started
- Science scholarships for young learners
- Inflation will be kept under check
- More allocation for polio and AIDS
- Health covers of Rs 30000 for workers in unorganised sectors
- Education sector gets a boost
- Agri credit doubled in first two years
- Bharat Nirman allocation to go up to Rs 31,280 cr from Rs 24,603 cr
- Gross Budgetary support to be Rs 24,3386 cr about Rs 38,286 cr more than 2007-08
- Agriculture credit to touch 2,40,000 cr in 2008
- Focus on achievement of self-sufficiency in food grain
- Soyabean output to be 9.45 mn tonnes
- Maize production to be 16.78 mn tonnes
- Rice production to be 94.08 mn tonnes
- Total agri production to be 219.32 mn tonnes at all time high
- Agriculture disappointing at average annual growth of 2.6%
- Keeping inflation under check to be on focus
- Focus on management of supply side of food, market, capital inflows next year
- India has registered a growth of over 8%$ for 12 successive quarters till Dec 2007
src:TimesofIndia

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