Budget 2018: 'Agriculture, rural economy given high priority', says FM Jaitley

Budget 2018: With this budget, Arun Jaitley has joined an elite group of finance ministers who have had the opportunity to present the Union Budget over five times.

Budget 2018: Prime Minister Narendra Modi government in the Centre on Thursday presented its last full Union Budget 2018-19 in the Parliament. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled a slew of measures for agriculture as well as the rural sector and announced a new health insurance scheme for the poor, but provided little relief to the middle class.

With this budget, Arun Jaitley has joined an elite group of finance ministers who have had the opportunity to present the Union Budget over five times. Yashwant Sinha, P. Chidambaram, and Pranab Mukherjee have all presented the budget five or more times in the Parliament.

All that happened today

•  It is a defeatist budget. I think they have thrown in the towel. It is a budget of a government which has conceded that it has failed to address key issues in the economy... Unfortunately, the budget proposals are a big letdown: Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram


• The BJP-led government in Delhi is unfit to govern. It is a budget which is neither here, nor there. This budget is a big bluff. It is anti-people. I personally found it very disappointing: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee


• This budget gives new wings to the aspirations of the poor, farmers and the middle class. The New India Budget will truly empower all sections of the society to attain prosperity: BJP chief Amit Shah


• I had expected some financial assistance to important infrastructure projects for the national capital. Am disappointed that Centre continues its step-motherly treatment to Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal


• 2 Rs excise on petrol and diesel is being reduced and this is being converted into cess, that is the only change we have made, practically there is no impact on the final price of petrol and diesel. To the consumers, there is no change: Hasmukh Adhia, Finance Secretary


• Agriculture and rural economy have been given high priority in Budget 2018: FM Arun Jaitley


• BJP chief Amit Shah said the Union Budget gives new wings to aspirations of the poor as he cited measures aimed at giving a boost to farmers, infrastructure, rural sector and small and medium enterprises.


• Fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 raised to 3.5 pc of GDP as against 3.2 pc earlier; for FY19 deficit pegged at 3.3 pc as against 3 pc target: FM


• Customs duty on mobile phones increased to 20% from 15%: FM Arun Jaitley


• For senior citizens, exemption of interest income on bank deposits raised to Rs 50,000: Arun Jaitley




• Govt has made many positive changes in the personal income tax rates applicable to individuals in the last three years therefore I do not wish to make any changes to this: Arun Jaitley


• No changes in Income Tax slabs: FM


• No changes in Income Tax: Arun Jaitly


• Tax payers increased by 19.25 lakh: FM


• Projected fiscal deficit for 2018-19 is 3.3% of GDP: FM Arun Jaitley


• Tax payer base has risen from 6.47 crore in 2014-15 to 8.27 crore in 2016-17: Arun Jaitley

• Emoluments of the President to be revised to Rs 5 lakh per month & emoluments of the Vice-president to be revised to Rs 4 lakh per month: Arun Jaitley

Image: Twitter

• Govt has identified 372 specific business reform actions to improve ease of doing business; Evaluation of performance under this programme to be based on user feedback: FM Arun Jaitley


• Salaries of President & Governors will be increased: FM Arun Jaitley


• 80,000 crore disinvestment target for 2018-19, target for 2017-18 has been exceeded and will reach 1 lakh crore rupees: FM


• SEBI may consider mandating large corporates to use bond market to finance one-fourth of their fund needs, says FM


• 12,000 wagons, 5160 coaches and 700 locomotives being procured. There is significant achievements of physical targets by Railways : Arun Jaitley


• All railways stations with more than 25,000 footfall to have escalators. All railways stations and trains to have Wi-Fi and CCTVs progressively: Arun Jaitley


• Focus will be on safety, maintenance of railway tracks, increase in use of technology and fog safety devices: FM Jaitley


• Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations has been taken up; Mumbai transport system is being expanded; suburban network of 160 km planned for Bengaluru: FM


• Foundation stone of the bullet train was laid in September 2017. An institute is coming up in Vadodara to train the manpower required for the high speed railway projects: FM Jaitley


• 5 lakh WiFi hotspots to be set up in rural areas to provide easy Internet access: FM


• National Highways exceeding 9,000-km will be completed in 2018-19: FM Arun Jaitley


• All trains to be progressively provided with WiFI, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities: FM


• Cleaning of Ganga is of national importance, have sanctioned 187 projects under NAMAMI Ganga scheme: FM Jaitley


• Proposal to develop 10 prominent tourist destinations as Iconic tourism destinations: Arun Jaitley


• Govt will contribute 12% of wages of new employees in EPF for all sectors for the next 3 years : FM


• ₹1,48,528 crore - the capital expenditure for Indian Railways for 2018-19, announces FM


• 70 lakh new job opportunities will be created: Arun Jaitley


• Govt committed to create maximum job opportunities: FM


• Mass formalization of MSME sector is happening after demonetization and GST: FM


• Rs 16,000 cr to be spent on providing electricity connection to 4 cr poor households, says FM Arun Jaitley


• Govt plans to construct 2 crore more toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission: Finance Minister

Here is the LIVE LINK of Arun Jaitley's speech

• Providing 5 lakh rupees per family per year for medical reimbursement, under National Health Protection Scheme. This will be world's largest health protection scheme: FM

• Have decided to take healthcare protection to a new aspirational level. Launching a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, benefiting approx. 50 crore: FM


• Scheme for revitalizing school infrastructure, with an allocation of 1 lakh crore rupees over four years. Called RISE - Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education: FM


• Integrated B.Ed programme to be initiated for teachers, to improve quality of teachers: FM


• Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population: FM


• 14.34 lakh crore rupees to be spent for rural infrastructure: FM


• 8 crore free gas connections to women under UJJWALA and 4 crore electricity connections to the poor under Saubhagya Yojana: FM


• Govt proposes to increase the target of providing free LPG connections to 8 crore to poor women: FM Jaitley


• Removal of crop residue to be subsidized in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue: FM


• From 10 lakh crore to 11 lakh crore - credit for agricultural activities: FM


• Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund to be set up - total corpus 10,000 crore rupees: FM


• Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of 1290 crore rupees to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner: FM


• Cluster-model approach to be adopted for agricultural production: FM


• Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets: FM Jaitley




• From ease of doing business, our govt has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class: FM


• Budget 2018 will work with states to provide more resources to improve quality of education: FM Arun Jaitley


• Indian economy is on course to achieve high growth of 8 %. Economy to grow at 7.2-7.5% in second half of 2018-19: FM Jaitley


• Indian economy has performed very well since our Govt took over in may 2014, It is now the seventh largest in the world: FM Jaitley


• FM begins his Budget 2018 speech


• Budget 2018 will be one which will strengthen "Vikas": Sumitra Mahajan

Image PIB/Twitter

• PM Narendra Modi and Union Ministers Sushma Swaraj and Ram Vilas Paswan arrived at the Parliament


• Budget 2018 to be presented shortly 


• Cabinet gives nod to Union Budget


• FM Arun Jaitley to give speech both in English & Hindi. Till now, speech was only in English


• Cabinet meeting begins inside Parliament ahead of Budget 2018


• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrives at the Parliament


• Union Budget papers arrive in Parliament


• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrives at the Ministry of Finance. He will be presenting the Union Budget 2018 in the Parliament today


• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley leaves from his residence for the Finance Ministry in North block


• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to present the Union Budget 2018-19 in the Parliament at 11 am

(With agency inputs)