Budget 2008-09: Complete Highlights

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has focused on education, agriculture and rural sectors in his fifth Budget speech, saying, "more can be done to improve inclusive growth".

Thanking the UPA government for allowing him to present all its five national budgets, Chidambaram said this was a "rare honour" which he shared with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Here are the complete highlights of Union Budget 2008-09:

Complete Highlights

• Direct tax proposals to be revenue neutral. Indirect tax.
• Banking cash transaction tax withdrawn from April one.
• Commodities Transaction Tax to be introduced on the lines of Securities Transaction Tax.
• Short-term capital gains increases to 15 per cent.
• Five year tax holiday for promoting cultural tourism.
• For women, I-T limit goes up from Rs 1. 45 lakh to Rs 1.80 lakh.
• No change in corporate income tax.
• No change in rate of surcharge.
• Every income tax assessees to get relief of minimum of Rs 4,000.
• Income Tax assesses raised from 1,10,000 to 1,50,000.
• Duty on non-filter cigarettes to be raised.
• Excise duty reduced from 16 to 8 per-cent on water purification.
• Excise duty on small cars reduced to 12 per cent.
• Duty on crude and unrefined sulphur reduced from five to 2 per cent.
• General Centvat on all goods to be reduced from 16 per cent to 14 per cent.
• Duty withdrawn on naptha for production of polymers.
• Customs duty on specified sports goods down from 7.5 per cent to five per cent.
• Special Countervailing Duty on power imports.
• Customs duty on specified life saving drugs reduced.
• Tax to GDP ratio increased from 9.2 per cent to 12.5 per cent.
• Fiscal deficit pegged at 3.1 per cent and revenue deficit at 1.4 per cent.
• Plan expenditure fixed at Rs 2,43,000 cr and non-plan expenditure at 5,74,000 cr.
• Rs 50 crore for National Tiger Conservation Programme.
• Rs 624 crore allocated for Commonwealth Games.

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• 6th central pay commission to submit report by March 31, 2008.
• Defence allocation to be increased from Rs 96,000 cr to Rs 1,05,600 cr.
• Rs 32,676 crore as subsidy to Public Distribution.
• Rs 750 crore for upgradation of 300 ITIs in 25 districts.
• 75 lakh people to be covered by health insurance scheme.
• Foreign investment of 3.5 to 8 billion dollars for new oil blocks.
• Rs 800 crore for accelerated power reforms programme.
• Rural infrastructure development fund to be raised to Rs 14,000 cr.
• Loan waiver scheme to involve loans liability of Rs 60,000 cr to benefit 4 crore farmers.
• Implementation of debt waiver and debt relief by June 30 ’08.
• One time settlement of loans for other farmers.
• Complete waiver of loans for marginal farmers owning land up to one hectare and Small farmers owning land up to 1 and 2 hectares.
• Rs 644 crore for National Agriculture Insurance Scheme.
• Rs 75 cr to be given to Agriculture Ministry for mobile soil testing.
• National Horticulture Mission to be given Rs 1,100 crore.
• Rs 20,000 crore for irrigation projects under AIPB.
• Rs 2.80 lakh crore target for agriculture credit.
• Rs 500 crore for corpus fund to subsidise all women SHGs.
• Rs 540 crore for multi-sectoral development plan.
• Allocation for Minority Affairs Ministry from Rs 500 cr to Rs 1,000 cr.
• Allocation for schemes in North East from Rs 14,365 cr to Rs 16,400 cr.
• Rs 300 crore for desalination plant in Chennai for drinking water.
• Allocation for Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Rs 7,300 cr.
• JNU Renewal Mission to get Rs 6,865 crore.
• NREGA scheme to be rolled out in all the 596 rural.
• Allocation for ICDS increased to Rs 6300 crore.
• A national programme for the elderly at a cost of Rs 400 cr.

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• Rs 992 crore for national AIDS programme.
• Allocation for NRHM increased to Rs 12,050 crore.
• Rs 100 crore to be given to IT Ministry.
• 3 IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.
• 16 central universities to be opened in 2008-09.
• Growth rate of agriculture estimated at 2.6 per cent
• Services and manufacturing sectors expected to grow by 10.7 per cent.
• Rice production estimated at 94.08 million tones.
• Maize 16.78 mt, soyabean 9.45 mt and cotton 23.38 million bales.
• Gross budgetary support to be raised to Rs 2,43,386 cr.
• Allocation for Bharat Nirman to be raised to Rs 31,280 cr.
• Education Budget hike from Rs 28,674 crore to Rs 34,400 crore.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan will be provided Rs 13,100 cr.
• Mid Day Meal scheme Rs 8,000 crore.
• 410 additional Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalaya to be set up.
• Navodaya Vidyalayas to be opened in 20 districts.
• Rs.750 crore more to be given for merit scholarship to students up to 10th and 12th class.
• Mid day Meal scheme extended to upper primary level.
• 288 public sector bank branches to be opened in districts having minority community concentration.