Highlights of Budget 2018 over Fiscal, Agriculture,Swacch Bharat, Health

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday presented the National Democratic Alliance government's last Budget, which is the last before the General Elections.

Fiscal situation:

• In Budget 2018-19, the government has pegged fiscal deficit at 3.3 per cent of GDP for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2018. Though the fiscal deficit target is higher than the 3 per cent as projected earlier in the fiscal consolidation roadmap, markets had expected the government to go for a higher fiscal deficit target.
• Government aims for 2018-19’s fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of GDP. Revised fiscal deficit for 2017-18 was Rs 5.95 lakh crore or 3.5 per cent of GDP.

Agriculture:

• Minimum support price (MSP) for all upcoming Kharif crops to 1.5 times the cost of production.
• The government will ensure farmers get MSP even if prices fall, for which Niti Aayog will discuss with state governments the putting in place of an institutional mechanism to ensure that farmers get better prices for their produce.
• 470 APMCs have been connected to eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018.
• Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets.
• Cluster-model approach to be adopted for agricultural production.
• Allocation in Ministry of Food Processing is being doubled to boost Food Processing; specialized agro-processing and financial institutions to be promoted by Government.
• Rs 500 crore for Operation Green.
• Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with an allocation of Rs 1290 crore rupees to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.
• Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund to be set up – total corpus Rs 10,000 crore rupees.
• Credit for agricultural activities rose from Rs 10 lakh crore to Rs 11 lakh crore.
• Removal of crop residue to be subsidized in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue.
• The budget proposed to increase the target of providing free LPG connections to 8 crore women living below the poverty line.

Swacch Bharat and Housing :

• Rs 16,000 crore for PM Saubhagya Yojana that is connecting 4 crore households with free electricity.
• Aim to create at least 2 crore toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission.
• Housing for All by 2022 and PM Awas Yojana (rural)-51 lakh houses for 2018-19, dedicated affordable housing fund.
• Loans to self help group for women to increase to Rs 75,000 crore.
• Allocation to National Livelihood Mission of Rs 5,750 crore.
• Rs 14.34 lakh crore from extra and non-budgetary resources for housing and infrastructure in rural area.

Health:

• Jaitley declared two major new health initiatives under the government's Ayushman Bharat Program.
• One of the initiatives is the Flagship National Health Protection Scheme, which seeks to provide health insurance cover worth Rs 5 lakh per family to over 10 crore economically vulnerable families.Approximately 50 crore beneficiaries are expected to avail of this scheme.
• The second major initiative, which is reminiscent of the Delhi government's Mohalla Clinics, is the creation of 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness centres, which will "bring healthcare closer to home."