A tale of great expectations and little delivery

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget amid great expectations. Being the last full budget of the government, people had great expectation as election in eight states is very near and the Lok Sabha election is also due in 2019.

On the eve of the budget the government presented the economic survey which presented several major concerns about the economy. But this budget did not touch any of those important issues.In the budget several announcements have been made about agriculture and rural economy. The finance minister announced starting of ‘Operation green’ scheme for potato and onion but for this he has allocated a meager sum of Rs 500 crore.

The government has also announced that the income of the farmer will be doubled by 2022. For this the MSP of the agricultural products would be increase by 150%. Is this government making budget for the year 2019 or 2022 is not clear. For the salaried class, finance minister proposed a standard deduction of Rs 40,000 in lieu of transport allowance and medical reimbursement. The minister, however, did not propose any change in the tax slabs or rates for individual taxpayers. This has disappointed the middle class which was waiting nearly 5 years for some relief. Rather middle class has been forced to pay more taxes as the cess on education and health has been increased from 3% to 4%.

The investors feel cheated as a 10% long term capital gain tax has been levied.

Other public sectors including Railways have not been given due importance although railway has become a part of the general budget. Airports have been given great importance although this means of transportation is not for masses.

A lot of schemes on infrastructure have been announced based on publicprivate partnership. But the most important issue is employment generation and poverty eradication where the government failed to deliver.