New Delhi: Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made her maiden Budget Speech on Friday and presented the Union Budget 2019-20 before Parliament.
The key highlights of Union Budget 2019 are as follows:
- 10-point Vision for the decade
- Building Team India with Jan Bhagidari: Minimum Government Maximum Governance.
- Achieving green Mother Earth and Blue Skies through a pollution-free India.
- Making Digital India reach every sector of the economy.
- Launching Gaganyan, Chandrayan, other Space and Satellite programmes.
- Building physical and social infrastructure.
- Water, water management, clean rivers.
- Blue Economy.
- Self-sufficiency and export of food-grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables.
- Achieving a healthy society via Ayushman Bharat, well-nourished women & children, safety of citizens.
- Emphasis on MSMEs, Start-ups, defence manufacturing, automobiles, electronics, fabs and batteries, and medical devices under Make in India.
- India's first indigenously developed payment ecosystem for transport, based on National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) standards, launched in March 2019.
- Inter-operable transport card runs on RuPay card and would allow the holders to pay for bus travel, toll taxes, parking charges, retail shopping.
- Navigational capacity of Ganga to be enhanced via multi modal terminals at Sahibganj and Haldia and a navigational lock at Farakka by 2019-20, under the Jal Marg Vikas Project.
- Four times increase in next four years estimated in the cargo volume on Ganga, leading to cheaper freight and passenger movement and reducing the import bill.
- Massive push to all forms of physical connectivity through:
- Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.
- Industrial Corridors, Dedicated Freight Corridors.
- Bhartamala and Sagarmala projects, Jal Marg Vikas and UDAN Schemes.
- State road networks to be developed in second phase of Bharatmala project.
- Rs 50 lakh crore investment needed in Railway Infrastructure during 2018-2030.
- Public-Private-Partnership proposed for development and completion of tracks, rolling
- stock manufacturing and delivery of passenger freight services.
- 657 kilometres of Metro Rail network has become operational across the country.
Measures related to MSMEs:
* Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan Scheme
* Pension benefits to about three crore retail traders & small shopkeepers with annual turnover less than Rs. 1.5 crore.
* Enrolment to be kept simple, requiring only Aadhaar, bank account and a self declaration.
* Rs 350 crore allocated for FY 2019-20 for 2 per cent interest subvention (on fresh or incremental loans) to all GST-registered MSMEs, under the Interest Subvention Scheme for MSMEs.
* Payment platform for MSMEs to be created to enable filing of bills and payment thereof, to eliminate delays in government payments.