Union budget 2017-18: Is Arun Jaitley’s offering ‘historic’ or ‘disappointing’?

Senior Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: The union budget 2017-18, presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley, evoked the usual reactions in Madhya Pradesh, with chief minister Shivraj Singh hailing it as ‘historic’ and ‘beneficial for all’, while the opposition parties and even employees termed it as ‘disappointing’ and even ‘anti-development’.

The budget (see highlights in box below) failed to bring any particular cheer to the general salaried class in MP.

The class 3 employees association said that the minimal change in the income tax slab (5% tax for income between 2.5 lakh and 5.0 lakh) was a completely insufficient relief, especially with the taxable income increase following implementation of seventh pay commission.

General secretary of the association, Laxminarayan Sharma said that income up to Rs 4 lakh should have been made tax free, and 5% tax should have been charged up to Rs 6 lakh income.

CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the budget provisions would strengthen the federal structure and would provide lifeline to economic in form of digital economy.

He said that revolutionary provisions have been made for welfare of farmers that would see their income doubled in five years.

However, the same provisions have been slammed by opposition Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

MP Congress president Arun Yadav said that not making any provisions in view of crop damages and suicides by farmers showed that government was anti-farmer. AAP convener Alok Agrawal said that there was no clarity on roadmap to double the income of farmers.

Both said that there were no provisions to end poverty or unemployment and MP was sidelined as far as benefits of rail budget went.

The opposition leaders also took a dig at the union government for making huge provisions for the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which was termed as futile by the prime minister Narendra Modi earlier.

OUR TAKE: 

Given the hardships faced by people during demonetisation, there were expectations that the Union budget would provide relief. However, Arun Jaitely came out with a run of the mill and unimaginative budget. A positive aspect is focus on agriculture sector and MNREGS though there are riders to these allocations too--NewsBits.in team.

HIGHLIGHTS OF UNION BUDGET:

*  Income Tax Slab: No tax till Rs 3 lakh, 5% tax for Rs 3-5 lakh, 20% for Rs 5-10 lakh, 30% for Rs 10-50 lakh

*  Among the different sector maximum budget allocations have gone in the favor of Agriculture and allied, Rural development, Infrastructure and Transport.

*  Allocation for agriculture and Allied Sector has seen an increase of 13% from Rs 50437crore in 2016-17 to Rs 56992 crore in 2017-18.

*  Budget allocation for defense has also increased by 5.3% from Rs 249099 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 262390 crore in 2017-18.

*  Among the social sectors that have seen increase budgetary allocations are education and health, rural development and drinking water, women, children, allocations for SCs and STs.

*  Education Sector budget allocation reports routine increase of 10% over last year allocation from Rs 72394 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 79686 crore in 2017-18.

*  Health sector budget allocation shows significant rise over 27% from Rs 38448 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 48878 crore in 2017-18.

*  Rural Development budget has also gone up by 25.4% from Rs 102543 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 128560 crore in 2017-18.

*  Allocation for Social Welfare shows 18% rise from Rs 33411 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 39382 crore in 2017-18.

*  Allocation for women has increased by 24.9% from Rs 90770 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 113327 crore in 2017-18.

* Allocation for SCs and STs, have been increased substantially at 35% and 33% respectively. It has increased from Rs 38833 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 52393 crore in 2017-18 for SCs and Rs 24005 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 31920 crore in 2017-18 for STs.

* At the same time allocation for children shows nominal increase of 8.4%  from  Rs 65758 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 71305 crore in 2017-18.

(COMPILED BY VIKAS SAMVAD AND SANKET BUDGET CENTRE)