New Delhi, February 1

In its last full Budget before the 2019 General Election, the government today announced the “world’s largest” health insurance scheme for India’s 50 crore poor and fixed the minimum support price (MSP) at “1.5 times the input cost for all kharif crops this year”.Switching between Hindi and English, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha to repeated thumping of desks by treasury members led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — focusing heavily on uplifting agriculture and rural sectors while paying little attention to the middle class.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)PM Modi later described it as a vehicle to build a “new India”. The Budget is “farmer friendly, common citizen friendly, business environment friendly” and will add to “ease of living and ease of doing business”, Modi said.With chaotic implementation of the GST and demonetisation causing distress, Jaitley announced massive spending on rural and urban infrastructure, as also lower tax rates for small and medium enterprises.While continuing the 10-15 per cent surcharge on the super-rich, he raised the health and education cess, levied on all taxable income, to 4 per cent from 3 per cent at present.The Opposition slammed the Budget, terming it “defeatist” and an election-minded “big jumla (rhetoric)”.The centrepiece of the Budget was the plan to provide universal healthcare, with a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, or about 50 crore beneficiaries.Jaitley committed an expenditure of Rs 1.38 lakh crore on health, education and social protection. But to fund these, he let go of the fiscal consolidation roadmap. As a result, fiscal deficit for the current fiscal will be 3.5 per cent of the GDP as against the previous target of 3.2 per cent, and 3.3 per cent in 2018-19, as opposed to 3 per cent set earlier.While the farm industry termed it a “roti-kapada and kisan” Budget, agriculture activists decried it as a “big betrayal” with the farming community saying the real concerns have been ignored. Captains of the industry, meanwhile, raised concerns over the fiscal math and resource mobilisation for populist measures. — PTIRoad, infra cess on fuel proposedThe Budget has proposed a levy of road and infrastructure cess of Rs 8 per litre on petrol and high-speed diesel oil while abolishing an additional duty of excise of Rs 6 on the same account but officials said it would have no impact on the fuel prices for the end user. The basic excise duty on unbranded petrol was slashed by Rs 2 from Rs 6.48 per litre and on branded petrol from Rs 7.66 per litre. IANS

Tracking black money

The Income Tax (IT) department possessed the technology to track suspicious transactions and black money and it would go after all those who were indulging in these crimes, the CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said. PTI