No major announcement in Budget, capital expenditure allocation raised 11% to Rs 11.11 lakh crore

Rather than a budget, what Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented today in the Lok Sabha is an election manifesto of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The Finance minister had gone on to claim that the present government would retain power and then `` We will present detailed budget in July.''

She spent more of her 57-minute budget speech to list out what the first and second Modi governments had done in the past 10 years.

A confident Finance Minister of the forthcoming general election outcome did not make a big announcement. So she maintained both major direct-income tax and corporate tax and indirect taxes on the current rate.

Her focus was mainly on rural and low-income groups in the society. She announced that 2 crore houses would be built for low-income families in the next five years, Two lakh households will be provided with solar panels and they could use up to 300 units free monthly generated by them and excess could be sold to the grid. She announced several schemes for dairy farmers, steps would be taken to eradicate foot and mouth disease in the cattle. The deadly disease poses a big threat to the dairy farmers. She also said that steps would be taken to increase per capita milk output. Though India is the largest milk-producing country, in the case of productivity, India stands down on the table.

Sitharaman also said in her interim budget that steps would be taken to increase production and exports in the fisheries sector, however, she did not go into the details of her announcements.

She brought ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers, and helpers under the purview of the Pradhan Manthri Ayushman programme.

The finance minister said that zero-interest loans of Rs75 core of 50 years duration to the State for implementing infrastructure projects will continue..

She has increased the outlay for the capital expenditure for the next fiscal by 11 per cent to Rs.11.11 lakh core which would account for 3.5 per cent of GDP.

The finance minister also lauded the galloping growth of the aviation sector. She announced that 249 new airports would be built in the country.

In the Railways, three corridors will be set up. They are energy-mineral-cement corridor, high-traffic connectivity corridor, and Ports-connectivity corridor. As many as 40,000 bogies would be upgraded to the level of those of Vandebharath trains.

All the major islands including Lakshadweep will be made major tourist centres.

A panel would be set up to study and submit a report to the government on the problems posed by the highly populated states and their remedies