Interim Budget 2019
Agriculture and Farm Sector
- Total allocation for sector has an increase of 73%
- The PMKISAN scheme provides guaranteed income of INR 6000 per year
- Interest subvention of 2% announced for natural calamities and 3% relaxation for loans
MSMEs
- 2% interest rebate for MSMEs registered under GST for loans up to INR 1 crore
- Sourcing for SMEs increased up to 25%
- GeM platform extended to Central Public Sector Enterprises
Social security for workers in the unorganized sector: Workers in the unorganized sector get a monthly income up to INR 15,000. It also provides monthly pension of INR 3000.
Real estate/Construction: Real Estate developers are to deduct 100% of profits derived from development of affordable housing projects
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Personal Taxes
- Government has made certain key proposals to provide relief to small taxpayers, especially to middle class and salaried earners in the form of:
- Rebate on tax for total income of up to INR 5,00,000 for individuals
- Increase in standard deduction from INR 40,000 to INR 50,000 for salaried employees
- Relief for owners of more than one house
- Deduction of tax on interest from bank or Post Office deposits increased from INR 10,000 to INR 40,000
- Proportionate exemption on long-term capital gains
Corporate Taxes
Domestic companies with a turnover not exceeding INR 250 crore during FY 2016- 17 enjoy a reduced tax rate of 25%. Certain key amendments have been proposed in the Interim Budget:
- Tax notional income on rentals from property held as stock-in-trade for a period beyond one year from the end of the financial year
- Deduction on profits is available to developers
- The Government envisages a push towards technology-intensive tax assessments
Indirect Taxes
The CGST collection for FY 2019-20 is estimated to be at INR 6.10 lakh crore. ₹60,000 is allocated for MGNREGA and ₹19,000 is allocated for rural roads under GSY in the rural sector. Govt increases defence budget to over Rs 3 lakh crore
A single window clearance will be made available to filmmakers.
Nine priority sectors for govt:
- Digital India
- Clean India
- Expanding rural industrialization
- Clean rivers
- Coastines
- India as the launchpad of the world
- Self sufficiency
- Healthy India
- Minimum Government and Maximum Governance
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Strengthening the Financial System
Financial inclusion is a process of ensuring the availability of financial services to all sections of society, at an affordable cost.
- Banks began to implement financial inclusion as part of their business policy
- Financial inclusion got a boost from the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)
- The RBI has taken several initiatives in this direction
The IMF bemoans that only 13 per cent of Indian adults borrow through formal channels and only 35% of the farmers utilize loans.
Digital pathway to financial inclusion: Only 20% of households in rural India have access to internet. Innovative and easy-to-use platforms will help with more internet inclusion especially in rural areas.
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)
The main objectives include:
- Achieving financial inclusion
- Reinvigorating the postal system
- Making financial services more accessible
- Providing basic payments services
- Provide access to third-party financial services
Way ahead:
- Democratisation of credit
- Financialisation of savings
- Promoting financial literacy
- Changing the mindset of financial institutions
Designing financial products for women
- A gender gap of 9% is persisting in developing countries
- In India, the gender gap in access to bank accounts has decreased to 6% from 20% but the percentage of women who are active users (35%) is less than that of men at 47%
- This is because of poor financial design
- The micro-credit movement brought these women into the formal financial fold
Challenges and Concerns:
- Women are not considered active consumers of financial services
- There is limited evidence on the scale-up and success of women-led enterprises
- CCTs have been built with an emphasis on the social welfare of the family, rather than the economic benefit of individual women beneficiaries.
- Women are considered merely an avenue to pursue social welfare
Way Forward
- Employing oral informational management tools
- Having a collaborative approach
- The presence of women agents is required
- Women-owned enterprises have stronger repayment records
- Assessing and tracking the benefits of providing financial services to poor women
- FSPs can also use proxies
- Women-led micro enterprises expect much more than just the delivery of financial products
Good Governance: Cornerstone to Development
UN has defined 8 pillars of good governance:
- Consensus oriented
- Accountable
- Transparent
- Responsible
- Equitable and Inclusive
- Effective and Efficient
- Rule of Law
- Participatory
Civil Service, Legal, Judicial and Police Reforms
- Civil Service Reforms
- Improve teeth to tail ratio
- educe number of current 60 plus separate civil services
- Encourage lateral entry
- Bring down entry age in civil services
- Strengthen municipal cadres
- Develop inclusive citizen-centric framework
- Ensure probity in governance
- Legal Reforms
- Create repository of all existing central and state laws, rules and regulations
- Repeal redundant laws and remove restrictive clauses in existing laws
- Reform criminal justice and procedural laws
- Merge and rationalize tribunals
- Reduce criminalization of violation
- Prioritize court process automation
- Introduce administrative cadre in judicial system
- Police Reforms
- Modernising police forces
- Ensure greater representation of women
- Introduction of remodelled training modules
- Reform of FIR lodging mechanism
- Launch common nation-wide emergency contact number
- Instituting separate cadre for cyber-crimes
- Integrate the Lokpal and Prevention of corruption Acts
- A panel of experts put together
- E-Governance
- Making services available to public
- Providing connectivity and digital identity
- Benefits through Aadhar enabled DBT
- Simplifying forms and processes
- AI can play major role in better implementation
- Portals need to be made more effective
Aspirational Districts
The 115 districts were chosen by senior officials of the Union government in consultation with State officials on the basis of a composite index of the following:
- Deprivation enumerated under the Socio-Economic Caste Census
- key health and education performance indicators
- the state of basic infrastructure
A minimum of one district was chosen from every state. Education, health and nutrition, agriculture, water resources and other main areas are concentrated for development.
Paving the Way for Better Health Outcomes
Healthcare challenges in India:
- The country’s diversity
- Political system
- Unsafe boundaries
- Huge population burden
- Poor investment in health
Ayushmaan Bharat – An attempt to transform India’s Healthcare Map
Aim: To make path-breaking interventions to address health holistically, in primary, secondary and tertiary care systems
Objective: Prevention + Promotion (Health and Wellness)
Two major initiatives:
- Health and Wellness Centre
- National Health Protection Scheme
Ayushmaan Bharat can be a Game Changer only if:
- Collaboration is the key
- Capacity building of the existing resources is increased
- Adoption of technology
- Role of States
- Clarity on the Services being provided
- Price matters
- Community Engagement
- Special Unit to measure success, course correct
BUDGET 2019
There is an increase of more than Rs 7,000 crore in nominal terms from last year’s expenditure on health in this year’s budget.
Some concerns and Way Ahead
- Poor public health spending
- Poor allocation in Interim Budget
- Per capita spending on health
- Strengthening of the country’s primary healthcare system taken a backseat
- Ranking on the basis of Per capita Budget expenditure on health
- High out-of-pocket expenditure
PM-JAY app: Aimed at helping users get easy access to information on the scheme
National Health Authority (NHA): Aims to effectively implement PM-JAY
National Health Stack (NHS): Store every Indian’s Personal Health Records (PHRs), link to support national health electronic registries and embrace health management systems of public health programmes
The new Digital Information Security in HealthCare Act (DISHA)
- Makes any breach punishable
- Redefines personal information of the patients
- DISHA also defines a ‘clinical establishment’ as well as the term ‘entity’ clearly
- Accords great significance to “informed consent” of individuals
₹250 crore has been allocated for setting up health and wellness centres under the National Urban Health Mission.
Nearly 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres would be set up under Ayushman Bharat
Allocation to the National Tobacco Control Programme and Drug De-addiction Programme is only ₹65 crore, a decrease of ₹2 crore.
Harnessing Women Power for Development
Vulnerable, marginalised and Women in difficult circumstances:
- Women Impacted by Violence
- Women impacted by internal displacement, disasters and Migration
- Women and Labour
- Women in Agriculture
- Women and Health
- Slum Dwellers
- Women Prisoners
- Women belonging to Ethnic and Socially Vulnerable Communities
- Single Women
- Homeless and Destitute Women
Countries should act to empower women and should take steps to eliminate inequalities between men and women as soon as possible by:
- Establishing mechanisms for women’s equal participation
- Promoting the fulfilment of women’s potential
- Eliminating all practices that discriminate against women
- Adopting appropriate measures to improve women’s ability to earn income
- Eliminating violence against women
Uploading the Right of the Child to Thrive
Constitutional provisions that protect the rights of children
- Right to free and compulsory elementary education for all children in the 6-14 year age group (Article 21 A)
- Right to be protected from any hazardous employment till the age of 14 years (Article 24)
- Right to be protected from being abused and forced by economic necessity to enter occupations unsuited to their age or strength (Article 39(e))
- Right to equal opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and guaranteed protection of childhood and youth against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment (Article 39 (f))
- Right to early childhood care and education to all children until they complete the age of six years (Article 45)
Measures taken by India for protection of child rights
- India has globally recognized the Child Rights as binding constraint
- Every person below the age of 18 years of age, who is in need of care of protection, is entitled to receive from the state.
- The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is an Indian governmental commission, established by an Act of Parliament
- Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009.
- NCPCR Guidelines for Eliminating Corporal punishment in schools, 2010
- Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012