India, Budget, 2009

Much awaited budget 2009 is live and Pranab Mukerjee, India’s finance minister is presenting to the parliament as I am writing this. These are the highlights so far in the budget 2009.  I will post more updates and keep updating this post. Stay tuned to this space.

Full text of Budget highlights

Full text of speech by Pranab Mukerjee

Update 2 :

1. Excise duty removed on bio-diesel and bio-petrol.
2. Excise duty on branded jewellery removed.  - Why exactly?
3. 7 year tax holidy for gas production companies.
4. 5% custom duty on set-top box.
5. Commodity transaction tax abolished.
6. Minimum alternate tax (MAT) to be increased to 15% from 10%.
7. National rural employment guarantee (NREG) scheme gets a 144% increase in budget allocation.  
8. Fertiliser subsidy programme changed from product pricing to nutrient based subsidy. This would transfer the subsidies directly to the farmers rather than giving subsidy to the fertilizer companies who in turn sell it for less to the farmers.

Update 1 :

1. Increase of 10000 rupees of non-taxable for all. For men it would be increased to 160000 rupees from 150000 rupees. For women it would be 190,000 from 180000.
2. Surcharge (of 10%) removed on personal income tax. 
3. Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) abolished.
4. Section 80DD increased to 100000 rupees from 75000 rupees.
5. No change in corporate tax structure.

First update :

1.  10.21 lakh crores for the budget 2009-10
2.  GST from April 1, 2010
3.  New direct tax code to be released in 45 days
4.  Fiscal deficit at 6.9% of GDP
5.  Efforts to maintain 9% GDP
6.  Unique identification project to be completed in 12-18 months. 1200 crores allocated. 120 crores allocated.
7.  National Highway’s allocated 23% additional funds
8.  Railway budget increased to 15,800 crores from 10800 crores of last year
9.  Higher education poor students loans subsidy
10.  Farmers – subvention scheme – 3 lakhs loans to have an annual interest rate of 7%.
11.  Foreclosure on any business loans to reduce by 1%.
12.  Irrigation programs get 75% increase in budget allocation.
13.  Panel for studying petrol and diesel prices.
14.  Mumbai storm water projects to get 500 crores.
15. Encourage PSU disinvestment but would like to keep 51% in all the PSU’s.
16. Insurance and banks will not to be privatized.
17. IIFPL – 60% of PPP re-finance
18. 100,000 crore for infrastructure  - 9% of GDP by 2015
19. Farm loan interest rates 6% per annum
20. Agriculture farm loan waiver announced last year will be extended by 6 months
21. Commonwealth games budget increased
22. 7000 crore allocated for rural electrification scheme
23. Plans to set-up Public private partnership employment exchange – A web portal to come up.