Union Budget 2018 live updates

Jaitley: This year's budget will particularly focus on strengthening agriculture and rural economy, taking care of senior citizens and development of infrastructure, and working with states to improve quality of education.

Jaitley: Our government has eliminated middleman by promoting direct benefit transfer.Jaitley stresses on the government's focus on the farm sector, says the Centre wants to help farmers produce more.

Jaitley: The Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost.Our government will develop and upgrade rural haats into gramin agriculture markets. Infrastructure will be provided through schemes like MNREGA.470 APMCs have been connected to eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018. Agriculture ministry will promote cluster-based development among agri-communities and regions.

Allocation in food processing ministry is being doubled to Rs 1,400 crore from Rs 715 crore.Jaitley proposes to set up state-of-the art facilities in 42 mega food parks.Jaitley announces allocation of Rs 500 crore for Operation GreenRestructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of Rs 1290 crore to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.

Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund to be set up with a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore.A special scheme will be implemented to support the efforts of state governments of Haryana, Delhi-NCR, and Punjab to help tackle air pollutionGovt will allocate Rs 16,000 crore to provide electricity to rural areas under Pradhan Mantri Saubhagya Yojna.We aim to build 2 crore toilets over the next two years under Swachch Bharat Mission Budget effect: Sensex extends early gains, soars 0.7 percent, or 250 points, to 36,213 point. 8 crore free gas connections to women will be provided under 'Ujjwala' and 4 crore electricity connections to the poor will be provided under Saubhagya Yojana.

Rs 14.34 lakh crore rupees to be spent for rural infrastructure.Jaitley on education sector: Under RTE, lakhs of untrained teachers will be trained to help improve quality of education. We aim to use technology to upgrade teaching methods. Digital boards will replace blackboards.Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population.Scheme for revitalizing school infrastructure, with an allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore over four years. Called RISE - Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education.Jaitley now speaks on health sector.