Union Budget 2017

6th largest manufacturing country in the world up from the 9th position
2 most important policies - GST and Demonetization
Projected GDP for the upcoming year - 7.2% (IMF), 7.6% (World Bank)
Highlights of this year's budget
o Pre-poned to 1st February instead of last day of February so that
schemes can be operationalized right from the start of next Financial Year
o Merger of General budget with Railway budget - railways gets center
stage, functional autonomy of railways continues
o Planned and non-planned classification of expenditure abolished - to
give wholistic and optimistic allocation of resources to different sectors

Full Forms

NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural

Development
MSME Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
AIIMS All India Institute of Medical Sciences
MGNREG Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
A Guarantee Act
PMGSY Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana
MUDRA Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd.
FIPB Foreign Investment Promotion Board
PPP Publicprivate partnership
CPSE Central Public Sector Enterprises
SIDBI Small Industries Development Bank of India
PRASAD Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual
Augmentation Drive

Important Names
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi
President of India Pranab Mukherjee
Vice President of India Hamid Ansari
Speaker of Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan
Home Minister Rajnath Singh
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty M Venkaiah Naidu
Alleviation, Information & Broadcasting
Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Shipping Nitin Jairam Gadkari
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu
Minister of Statistics & Programme Implementation D V Sadananda Gowda
Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Uma Bharti
Rejuvenation
Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ramvilas Paswan
Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Kalraj Mishra
Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Parliamentary Affairs Ananthkumar
Minister of Law & Justice, Electronics & Information Ravi Shankar Prasad
Technology
Minister of Health and Family Welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda
Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju
Pusapati
Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Anant Geete
Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal
Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Narendra Singh Tomar
Water and Sanitation
Minister of Steel Chaudhary Birender Singh
Minister of Tribal Affairs Jual Oram
Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh
Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot
Minister of Textiles Smriti Zubin Irani
Minister of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan
Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar

CPI Consumer price measures changes in the price level of market basket of consum
index services purchased by households

Farmers
Agriculture expected to grow at 4.1% in the current year with better monsoon
Agricultural credit target - Rs 10 Lakh Crore
60-day interest waiver was announced by PMO on loans to Farmers
Support NABARD for computerization and integration of 63,000 functional
PAC's (Primary Agricultural Credit Societies) with core banking support - within
3 years - estimated cost of 1900 crores with financial participation from the
State Governments
Security against natural calamities - Fasal Bheema Yojana - coverage
increased from 30% of cropped area to 40%
Issuance of soil health cards - set up mini labs in KVK's (Krishi Vigyan
Kendras) to ensure 100% coverage
Long term irrigation fund set up in NABARD - Corpus Rs 40,000 crores - initial
corpus of Rs 5000 crores
e-NAM (National Agriculture Market ) from 250 to 585 APMC's (Agricultural
Produce Market Committee). Assistance upto a ceiling of Rs 75 Lakh to every e-
NAM
Diary processing infrastructure development fund to be set up by NABARD
with a corpus of Rs 8000 crores over 3 years - initial corpus of Rs 2000 crores

Rural Population
Mission Antyoday - to bring 1 crore houses out of priority and 50,000 gram
panchayats poverty-free by 2019
Definition of affordable housing modified to include carpet area, instead of
built-up area
Another 5 lakh farm ponds to be taken up, Rs 48,000 crore allocation for
MGNREGA (highest ever for MGNREGA)
 Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) - 133km per day - Rs 19,000
crores + State finance
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (Gramin) - allocation Rs 23,000 crores with a
target to complete 1 crore affordable homes by 2019.
[The PMAY was introduced in 2015 with a target of 20 million houses for urban
poor by 2022]
National Housing Bank will refinance individual housing loans of about Rs
20,000 crore in 2017-18
100% village electrification by 1 May 2018 - increased allocation of Rs 4814
crores under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana
Increased allocation of Deen Dayal Antyoday Yojana (National Rural Livelihood
Mission) for promotion of skill development and livelihood opportunities to Rs
4500 crores
Swacha Bharat Mission - sanitation coverage in rural areas gone up
from 42% to 60%
Safe Drinking water to cover 28,000 arsenic and fluoride effected habitations
in the next 4 years as a part of a sub mission of the National Rural Drinking
Water Programme (NRDWP)
Mason training will be provided to at least 20,000 persons in 2017-18

Total allocation for rural, agricultural and allied sectors is Rs 1,87,223 crores (24%
higher than the last year)
Youth
System to measure annual learning outcomes in school
Innovation fund to be created, focus will be on 3,479 educationally backward
blocks
Propose to leverage IT through Swayam platform with at least 350 online
courses
National Testing Agency to conduct all entrance exams for higher education
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras to be extended to more than 600 districts in
the country
Skill acquisition and knowledge awareness for livelihood promotion program -
Sankalp (Rs 4000 crores), market relevant training 3.5 crore youth
Tourism - 5 special tourism zones to be set up through Incredible India

Poor and Underprivileged

Mahila Shakti Kendras will be setup at a village level - Rs 500 crores in 14
Lakh Anganvadi Centers to empower rural women
Rs 6000 to every pregnant woman who undergoes institutional delivery
and vaccinates the child
Higher investment in affordable housing
Elimination of Kalazar and Philarisis by 2017, Leprosy by 2018 and Measles
by 2020
1.5 lakh health sub centers to be transformed into health wellness centers
 2 new AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) to be set up in
Jharkhand and Gujarat
Allocation of Scheduled Castes stepped up to Rs 52,393 crores; Scheduled
Tribes Rs 31, 920 crores; Minority affairs Rs 4,195 crores

Infrastructure
Total capital and development expenditure of railways pegged at Rs 1,31,000
crores - Rs 55,000 crores provided by the government from the budget
Railways to focus on 4 major areas:
o Passenger safety - Rail Raksha Kosh (a safety fund) - corpus of Rs 1
Lakh Crore over a period of 5 years
o Capital and development works
o Cleanliness
o Financial and accounting reforms
Unmanned level crossing to be eliminated by 2020
Railway lines of 3500 km will be commissioned
500 stations to be made differently-abled friendly
7000 stations to be fed with solar power
SMS based Clean my Coach service has been started. Coach Mitra facility to
be started
Solid waste management plants to be introduced in railways
Service charges on e-tickets booked through IRCTC will be withdrawn

Budget allocation for National Highways Rs 64,000 crores

2000 km of coastal connectivity roads identified for construction

Transport sector as a whole - Rs 2,41,387 crores

Total allocation for infrastructure - Rs 3,96,135 crores

Financial Sector
Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) will be abolished to liberalize
FDI (Foreign Direct Investment)
Listing of IRCTC, IRFC and IRCON will be listed on various stock exchanges
MUDRA (Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd) Yojana - lending
target Rs 2.44 Lakh Crores (doubled)
A tough law to deal with big time offenders fleeing the country to escape the
reach of law. The government is considering legal changes to confiscate the
assets of such individuals
10,000 crore for recapitalization of banks, interest receivables on actual basis
instead of accrual basis

Digital Economy
 BHIM App for digital payments - 2 new schemes for encouraging digital
payments - Referral Bonus Scheme for individuals and a Cashback Scheme for
merchants
Aadhar Pay to be launched shortly for those who do not have mobile phones
Banks to introduce additional 10 Lakh PoS terminals by March 2017
High speed broadband connectivity on optical fiber in more than 1,50,000
gram panchayats by the end of the next fiscal year

Public Service
Chandigadh and 8 districts of Hariyana have become Kerosene free
Head post office to be utilized as a front office for rendering passport service
Travel tickets can be booked by soldiers without them having to wait in
queues
Rationalize the number of tribunals by merging them wherever appropriate
Commemorate the 100 years of Sabarmati Ashram in a befitting manner
For senior citizens, Aadhar based Smart Cards containing their health details
will be introduced

Fiscal Management
The total expenditure of the budget - Rs 21,47,000 Crores
Defense expenditure excluding pension - Rs 2,74,114 Crores including Rs
86,488 Crores for defense capital
Allocation to scientific ministries - Rs 37, 435 crores
FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management) committee has
recommended a 3% fiscal deficit for the next 3 years
Fiscal deficit for 2017-18 pegged at 3.2% of the GDP

Tax Administration
Tax-to-GDP ratio of India is very low
Out of an estimated 4.2 crore people engaged in the organized sector
employment, the number of individuals filing returns for salary income is only
Rs 1.74 crores
Out of 5.6 crore informal sector enterprises and firms doing business in India,
the number of returns filed in this category are only 1.81 crores
 Out of 13.94 lakh companies registered, 5.97 companies have filed the
return, out of these, 2.76 lakh companies show losses or zero income, 2.85
lakh companies have shown profit before tax less than 1 crore, 28,667
companies have shown profit between 1 to 10 crores, only 7,781 companies
have shown profit more than 10 crores
Individuals: Out of 3.7 crore individuals who filed tax returns, 99 lakh showed
income below the exception limit of 2.5 lakh, 1.95 crore showed income
between 2.5 to 5 lakh, 52 lakh showed income between 5 lakh to 10 lakh, only
24 lakh people show income above 10 lakh, 1.72 lakh showed more than 50
lakh
When too many people evade taxes, the burden falls on the honest and tax
compliant citizen
In order to make MSME more viable, income tax for companies with annual
turnover of up to 50 crore reduced to 25%
Boost to banking sector - allowable provision for banks non-performing assets
(NPA) from 7.5% to 8.5%
No transaction above Rs 3 lakh should be permitted in cash
Transparency in political funding: Maximum amount of cash donation that a
political party can receive will be Rs 2000 from any 1 source, cheque and
digital mode is permitted. RBI to introduce electoral bonds that people could
purchase from banks and political parties receiving them could redeem

Personal Income Tax

Income between 2.5 lakh to 5 lakh - Tax 5%
Uniform benefit of Rs 12,500 per person for all other categories of tax
payers
Existing rebate for those earning Rs 5 lakh or less would now be reduced to
Rs 2500 and available only to those earning up to Rs 3.5 lakh
Surcharge of 10% for people whose annual taxable income is between 50
lakh and 1 crore
Existing surcharge of 15% of tax on people earning more than Rs 1 crore will
continue

GST Reform will be presented very soon