Budget 2015-16

5 challenges:
- agri
- public investment
- manufacturing stagnant
- ??
- fiscal (in)discipline

Medium term fiscal deficit target: 3% of GDP
3.9% -- 2015-16
3.8% -- 2017-18

To be a just and balanced society: schemes and subsidies for poor and those well-off. We need a
* well targeted system
* rationalized subsidies

Direct cash benefit -- to increase beneficiaries from 1 crore to 10 crore people.

2 major factors critical to agri production: soil and water

To improve soil health: Min of Agri's scheme -- PM's Gram Sichai Yojana (PGSY), Microirrigation watershed programme

Agri credit with special focus on small and marginal farmers: funds to corpus of rural ?? fund.

To increase farmers' incomes: create a National Agriculture Market -- work with NITI

Informal sector enterprises generate max employment. These have to complement government and corporates in employment and thus growth of the nation. These find it difficult if not impossible to access formal credit. MUDRA Bank with a corpus of 20,000 crores and a credit guarantee corpus of 3,000 crore. PM's Mudra Yojana -- targeted at first generation entreprenuers + SC/ST/OBC entreprenuers.
--- Like Banking the unbanked, funding the unfunded.

Bankrupcy law reform: bring a comprehensive bankrupcy code to meet global standards and provide for judicial capacity (wtf?)

To bring parity in regulation of NBFCs with other financial instutitions, NBFCs registred with RBI with worth more than 5000 crore to be considered fincnaicl instututions.

A lot of our polulation is without insurance. Going on, a lot of growing old people will be pensionless. -- so a universal social secutiyy system for poor and old. PM Bima yojana to have a cover of 2 lakh for a premium of rs. 12 per year -- taken from PM Jan Dhan Yojana.

Atal Pension Yojana: Pension for poor .. like NPS

PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima yojana: accidental and ____ insurance.

Proposed to create a Senior Citizens Welfare Fund from unclaimed PPF accounts -- for old, BPL Card holders etc.

NEEDS OF Senior Citizens: many are in BPL Category, suffer from age related disabilities. --- New scheme for providing physical aids and assistance devices. No indian citizen to worry about accident, old age, disease etc.

To enable people w/o school certificates to get them and get jobs.

Something something for Parsees.

INFRASTRUCTURE: railways, PSUs, tax free infra bonds for projects in rail etc. Establish an Atal Innovation mission in NITI: 150 crore initial corpus.

Something something for startups. E-Biz portal launched.

Minor ports can be an attractive investment oppurtunity. Ports under govt sector will be encouraged to become companies under companies act.

Intend to appoint an expert committee -- replace multiple prior permissions with ??

Govt proposes to set up 5 ultra mega power projects. Each with capacity of 4000 MW.

II unit of Kundankulam power station to be commissioned in 2015-16.

MGNREGS to have 5000 crore more -- max in any year

Children:

PM Krishi Sinchai yojana

Financial markets: Merge the forward markets commission with sebi to reduce wide speculation and bring uniformity.

Propose to amend sec 6 of FEMA so that capital flows will be ....

task force to establish a sector neutral agency to make sure financial greviences can be resolved.

To put in place a direct tax regime at par with internation standards. TO have a modernized indirect tax regime via gst etc.

India: largest consumer of gold in world. Stocks of gold estimated over 20,000 tonnes, neither traded nor monetized. So,
1. start a gold monetization scheme
2. develop an alternative financial asset -- a soverign gold bond -- to carry a fixed rate of interest
3. commence work on developing the indian gold coin with ashoka chakra on its face. it will help to reduce demand for coins outside india (wtf?)

to improve cashless transaction:

1. alternative investment funds
2. foreign investment in alternative investment funds

1000 crore to nirbhaya fund

India has 25 world cultural heritage sites. Need better facilities like parking, toilets, for disabled visitors etc. Proposal to start working on these lines and develop the following sites:
1. churches and convents of old goa
2. hampi in karnataka
3. ele in mumbai
4. ?
5. rani ka pattan gujarat
6. leh palace
7. varanasi
8. jallianwala bagh
9. some temple in telangana

After success of visa on arrival issued to travellers from 43 countries, tourism has increased. Proposal to increase the countries to 115/150? in different stages.

Development process to be as green as possible because bad enviromnent hurts poor more.

Putting scam, scandal and corruption raj behind us. Parliament needs to have a procurement law. Disputes arising out of publis contracts take a long time. So need a Public Contracts (resolution of disputes) bill.

Proposal to have a regulatory reform law.

We are one of the youngest nations of the world. More than 54% people below 25 years of age. We need to be skilled etc. Skill and MakeInIndia should be coordinated. We will soon launch a National Skills Mission thru Skill Dev and EntreP Ministry.

Rural population forms more than 70% of people, rural skill dev is key to skill dev. Scheme name??? (Deen Dayal Upadhayay??)

100 years of DD Upadhayay --- question!!

PM Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram -- no one to miss higher education for lack of funds.

At least one major education in each state.

An AIIMS in JnK, Pb, TN, HP and Assam. For Bihar with an AIIMS already, another AIIMS like instutition in that state. IIMines DHanbad to be full IIT.  Amritsar something something. 3 NIPERS in Mah, xx and xx. North East to have a centre for Film Production et al in ArunP.

National Optical Fibre Network to be further speeded by allowing willing states to increase it on centrs's reimbursing of funds.

Something something Ganga river.

DMIC Corroider-- good progress in Gujarat and Aurangabad, Maha.

DEFENCE: FDI in defence already premitted. Pursuing make in india policy to achieve greater self sufficiency, including for aircraft.
For Arms forces, expenditure increased.

Something something GIFT in Gujarat.

For resolution of commercial disputes, govt proposes exclusive commercial (benches?) in high courts.

TAX Proposals: tax helps provide edu, housing, health, development and other objectives.
* A very important dimension is fight against black money.
* Need to create more jobs -- to enable tax policy for thie -- gst is expected to play a transformative role
* reduce corporate tax from 30% to 25% over next 4 years -- higher growth and more jobs -- has to be accompanied by rationalization and removal or various incentives and exemptions

Broad themes:
- black money
- job creation, domestic manufacturing -- make in india etc.
- benefit to poor
- health, edu
- maximize benefits to economy

Highlights of proposed bill to curb black money
* concealment of income, foreign assets etc: punishable with rig imprision upto 10 years, non compoundable, no settlement commission
* non filing of return will be liable for prosecution and ??
* benificit of owner from foreign income to be mandatorily filed in return even if income is not taxable
* laundering something something
*
* forex managemtnt act to be amended to the effect that action can be taken for seizure and conseconsnsial confiscation of same amount in india
* confiscation of benami property etc. especially in real estate
* amend IT Act to prohibit amounts more than 20,000 something
* CBDT and CBEC will leverage tech and have access to info in each other's databases.
* GAAR needs to be acclerated. Defer the applicability of GAAR by two years.
* IT to be reduced on royalty fees etc from 25% to 10%
* Customs duty to be reduced on 22 items
* abolish wealth tax, replaced with 2% addl surcharge on superrich -- income above 1 crore annually.
* Swacch Bharat Cess at rate of 2% or less if need arises
*