As the FM takes his first 5 minute break from giving his budget speech here’s a look at some immediate impact for our personal finance…
1. Unified PPF account to be introduced – so that you don’t have to worry about your PF money next time when you change city or jobs. This is a good measure for the employed.
2. Boost for young professionals – Thy FM wants you to have a roof above your head – The FM has indicated that the government wants to promote youngsters in cities to own houses. There is a lot of impetus on housing. Loans may be cheaper. 4000 Crores allocated to National Housing bank.
3. FDI in many sectors including Insurance – implies more competition, better services and products.
Here are the more highlights as FM gets back from his break –
– To mitigate Price volatility in Agriculture – Price stabilisation fund with 500 crores to be set up
– 8 Lakh crores target set for agri lending
– To improve shelf life of farm produce – 5000 Crores for Storage warehouses.
– Long term credit fund to be set up for rural credit.
– Restructuring FCI and improving transport of food. Open market sales to be undertaken to balance prices.
– 100 Crore for Television targeted towards farmers
– National Industrial corridor will be promoted with 100 crores as initial corpus
– Industrial smart cities in 7 states.
– Export promotion to be done by helping states. Export promotion mission to bring all stakeholders under one umbrella.
– Promotion of Entrepreneurship and startups – Conducive ecosystem for Venture capitalists investing in SMe segment – Rs 10000 Crore fund to be set up.
– Nationwide incubation support in districts.
– 6 Textile clusters to be set up – 200 crore set aside
– 16 new port projects – 11000+ crores set aside to develop existing ports
– Scheme for development of Airports
– Road sector to have Rs. 37000+ crores for National Highways and State Highways.
– High priority to New and Renewable energy – 500 crores set aside.
– 15000 Kilometres of gas pipelines to be developed. Reduce dependence on any one energy source.
– Revision of Royalty on minerals to increase revenue for state governments
Indirect taxes
– Boost domestic manufacturing
– Soaps to be cheaper to produce. It is to be seen if manufacturers pass it to customer.
– Lower CVD for Batteries
– Nil CVD for spandex yarn
Impact on Finance markets
– Introduction of uniform KYC norms across financial sector
– Introduce common demat account
– Banking
– Consolidation of Public sector banks to be pursued
– Long term financing of infrastructure.
– Insurance sector to be strengthened.
– To improve returns for small saver – small savings to be revived.
– NSC with insurance cover will be launched
Impact on Personal Finance
– Income tax exemption raised from 2 to 2.5 Lakh
-80 C limit raised to 1.5 Lakh
–Section 24 increased from Rs 1.5L to 2L
– For Senior citizens no tax for income upto 3 Lakh
– No changes in tax rate
– PPF Annual ceiling raised to 1.5 Lakh
