Following are the highlights of the budget:
GROWTH, INFLATION EXPECTATIONS
* Economy expected to grow at 9 percent in 2012, plus or minus 0.25 percent
* Inflation seen lower in the financial year 2011-12
SPENDING
* Plan expenditure seen at 4.41 trillion rupees in 2011-12, up 18.3 percent
REVENUE
* Gross tax receipts seen at 9.32 trillion rupees in 2011-12
* Non-tax revenue seen at 1.25 trillion rupees in 2011-12
DISINVESTMENT
* Disinvestment in 2011-12 seen at 400 billion rupees
POLICY REFORMS
* To create infrastructure debt funds
* To boost infrastructure development with tax-free bonds of 300 billion rupees
* Food security bill to be introduced this year
* To permit Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered mutual funds to access subscriptions from foreign investments
* Raised foreign institutional investor limit in 5-year corporate bonds for investment in infrastructure by $20 billion
* Public debt bill to be introduced in parliament soon
SECTOR SPENDING
* To allocate more than 1.64 trillion rupees to defence sector in 2011-12
* Corpus of rural infrastructure development fund raised to 180 billion rupees in 2011-12
* To provide 201.5 billion rupees capital infusion in state-run banks in 2011-12
* To allocate 520.5 billion rupees for the education sector
* To raise health sector allocation to 267.6 billion rupees
AGRICULTURE
* Removal of supply bottlenecks in the food sector will be in focus in 2011-12
* To raise target of credit flow to agriculture sector to 4.75 trillion rupees
* Gives 3 percent interest subsidy to farmers in 2011-12
* Cold storage chains to be given infrastructure status
* Capitalisation of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of 30 billion rupees in a phased manner
* To provide 3 billion rupees for 60,000 hectares under palm oil plantation
* Actively considering new fertiliser policy for urea.
So in true & simple meaning we can have the following resultant from the budget that pranab da proposed in the parliament:
L Service tax on hotels charging above Rs 1000 per day
J Homeopathic medicines, steel, LED, diaper get cheaper
L Service tax imposed on diagnostic tests
J Individual to gain Rs 171 every month under new tax slab
J Customs duty on mobile phones reduced—means it will cost less.
L Service tax on air-conditioned restaurant hiked
L Healthcare to cost more due to hike in service tax
J Farm related equipments will going to cost less due to slash in tax.
J Priority home loan limit raised to Rs 25 lakh
J TV, mobile and ACs will be cheaper
L Air travel and branded clothes become expensive
L Service tax imposed for treatment in AC hospitals
J Basic customs duty on silk slashed from 30 per cent to 5 per cent
J Minimum gain for individual taxpayers under new tax slab will be Rs 2,060
J I-T exemption for senior citizens increased from Rs 2.4 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakhs and age bracket reduced from 65 years to 60 year
J New category of senior citizens above 80, tax exemption limit Rs 5 lakh
J Tax slab has been incresed from Rs 1,60,000 to Rs 1,80,000 & proposes that salaried class not to file I-T returns, employers to provide data directly to I-T
J Allocates Rs 52,057 crore for education sector, increase of 24 per cent from last year
(Rs 200 crore for development of IIT Kharagpur, To provide Rs 20 crore grant to IIM Kolkata,
Rs 50 crore grant to Aligarh Muslim University)
J Anganwadi workers' pay hiked from Rs 1500 to Rs 3000 per month
J Pension amount hiked from Rs 200 to Rs 500 for people above 80-year
J Rs 30,000 crore proposed for tax-free infrastructure bonds- for Bharat Nirman.
Emphasis on rural development
J NABARD capital base to be strengthened by Rs 10,000 crore
J Rs 100 crore to SIDBI for women
J Enhance rural housing fund to Rs 3000 crore
J Allocation to farm development raised to Rs 7,860 crore
