BUDGET 2019

The Government is about to complete its tenure of 5 years with the next general elections
scheduled to be held in next few months. Conventionally, a government at the end of its
tenure has gone for a “vote on account” rather than a full fledged annual financial statement.
Therefore, the acting Finance Minister Shri Piyush Goyal presented an interim budget 2019-
20 in parliament on 1st February 2019. This Budget is to viewed as medium for progressive
path for the country. The interim Budget 2019-20 focuses on farmers, MSME, and the middle
class. It provides major schemes for income tax SOPS. The Finance Minister says that the
government has brought down average inflation to 4.6% lower than the inflation during the
tenure of any other previous government. A New Deal for 12 crore small Marginal farmers
with the direct income support, a path breaking Pension initiative for 10 crore unorganized
sector workers. The Major schemes launched are: Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi to
extend direct income support Rs6000 per year to farmer families having cultivated land up to
2 hectares. The amount will be transferred to the account of farmers in three equal
installment. To provide sustained and focused attention towards Department of Fisheries a
separate department of fisheries will be created by Government of India to promote growth
over 7% of about 1.45 crore people dependent on this sector plus 2% interest subvation to
farmers pursuing activities of animal husbandary and fisheries. Rs 750 crore has been allotted
for “Rashtriya Global Mission”. A “Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog “ will be setup to upscale
genetic upgradation of cow resources. Pradhna Mantri Shram – Yogi Maandhan is announced
to provide pensionary benefits to atleast 10 crore labourers and workers in unorganized
sector RS500 crore allotted to this scheme and will be implemented from current year.
Regarding the tax benefits individual taxpayers having taxable income upto 5 lakh will not be
required to pay any income tax. The persons having gross income upto 6.5 lakhs are not
required to pay any tax if they make investments in provision funds, insurance etc. Additional
deductions such as interest on home loan upto Rs 2 lakh, interest on education loan, medical
expenditure on senior citizen etc are also provided. Thus, a total of Rs 18,500 crore tax benefit
is provided. For salaried person, standard deduction is raised from RS 40,000 to Rs 50,000
with additional tax benefit of Rs 4,700 crore. Also an exemption of levy on income tax on
national rent on second self-occupied house is also now proposed. TDS threshold on interest
earned on bank/post offices is being raised from Rs10,000 to Rs 40,000. Considering the
foreign direct investments india attracted a massive amount of $230 million during last five
years, when most of the FDI was allowed to come in through automatic route. The allocations
has been enhanced for various schemes ranging for MGNREGA of Rs 60,000 crore to Pradhan
Mantri Sadak Yojana of Rs 19,000 crore. Thus the government gone all out. The indian voters
giving importance to the farm sectors and the middle class people. Apart from that the
government has assured that it also keeps up with growing pace of economy. The PM- KISAN
scheme which has been allotted 75,000 crore will give a boost to the banking sector at a time
when credit is growing faster than deposits. Acknowledging the slowdown in real state,
government budget has outlined mesures to ease fiscal burden of developers whilw
incentivising homebuyers. MSME has been benefited with tax rebate and capital gain tax. To
sum up, the government has sought to draw a balance between fiscal discipline and welfare
announcements.