Finance Minister of India Pranab Mukherjee presented Union Budget 2011-12 to the Parliament of India on Monday. This is the budget for the coming financial year 2011-12. Pranab Mukherjee is one of the very senior leaders of the ruling Congress party and belongs to the state of West Bengal. He is known as a man of integrity and down to earth with vast experience in financial administration and governance. Following are the highlights of the Union Budget 2011-12:
1. To allocate 520.5 billion rupees for the education sector
2. Gives 3 percent interest subsidy to farmers in 2011-12
3. Plan expenditure seen at 4.41 trillion rupees in 2011-12, up 18.3 percent
4. Raised foreign institutional investor limit in 5-year corporate bonds for investment in infrastructure by $20 billion
5. Non-tax revenue seen at 1.25 trillion rupees in 2011-12
6. To provide 201.5 billion rupees capital infusion in state-run banks in 2011-12
7. To permit Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered mutual funds to access subscriptions from foreign investments
8. Public debt bill to be introduced in parliament soon
9. Disinvestment in 2011-12 seen at 400 billion rupees
10. To boost infrastructure development with tax-free bonds of 300 billion rupees
11. Food security bill to be introduced this year
12. Economy expected to grow at 9 percent in 2012, plus or minus 0.25 percent
13. Inflation seen lower in the financial year 2011-12
14. Capitalisation of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of 30 billion rupees in a phased manner
15. To create infrastructure debt funds
16. Corpus of rural infrastructure development fund raised to 180 billion rupees in 2011-12
17. To allocate more than 1.64 trillion rupees to defence sector in 2011-12
18. Gross tax receipts seen at 9.32 trillion rupees in 2011-12
19. To raise health sector allocation to 267.6 billion rupees
20. Cold storage chains to be given infrastructure status
21. Removal of supply bottlenecks in the food sector will be in focus in 2011-12
22. To raise target of credit flow to agriculture sector to 4.75 trillion rupees
23. To provide 3 billion rupees for 60,000 hectares under palm oil plantation
24. Income Tax limit extended to Rs. 1,80,000 from Rs. 1.6 lakh
25. No change in IT limit for Women
26. Senior citizens IT exemption would be Rs. 2.5 lakh from the present Rs. 2.4 lakh
27. Very Senior citizen’s are exempted from IT till Rs. 5 lakh