Budget : 2018 Gist

*Indian Union Budget 2018-19* highlights :

• Budget around benefit of rural & infra push, critically balancing growth & fiscal prudence.

• *MSP on Kharif crop to be 1.5 times* of cost of prod.

• *National health protection scheme launched* 

@5Lk/family/year for 10cr poor families.

• focus on increasing *rural spending* , with rural livelihood spent plan @14.3Lk cr.

• *Women contribution to EPF to be reduced to 8% from 12%* with no change in employer contribution

• Highway construction to exceed 9k km by end of Fy18. Target 35k km under Bharat mala with outlay of 5.35 Lk cr.

• *Railways capex for fy19@ 1.48 Lk cr* 

• SEBI to mull asking *corporates to raise 25% of debt requirements from Corp bond mkt*

• Use of *ETFs for disinvestment purposes* including launch of Debt ETF

• *GoI does not consider crypto currency as legal tender* to take steps to curb illegitimate transactions.

• *extra budgetary spent of 5.97 Lk cr for infra*

• Bank recap plan to help banks lend additional 5Lk cr.

• *FY19 divestment tgt of 80k cr* , Fy18 divestment collections to touch 1Lk cr 

• Aim to *reduce central govt Debt to GDP ratio* to 40%

• *Health cess @4%* from next fiscal

• Revised *fiscal def estimate for fy18 at 3.5% vs 3.2%* (5.9 Lk cr) 

• _FY19 fiscal def tgt @3.3% vs 3%_

• *_No change in personal income tax structure_*

• *Standard deduction of 40k for salaried* in lieu of transport & medical exp.

• Cos with turnover upto 250cr - *tax reduced to 25%*

• GoI brings *Long term cap gain tax of 10%(without indexation) for gains of over 1 Lk* 

• Capital gains on equities made till 31st Jan'18 to be grandfathered. 

• STCG @15% up to 1yr 

• *DDT introduced for equities @10%*

Mkts :

*NSE 11079*

*IND 10yr Gsec(O) 7.68*(+8bps)

*IND 10yr Gsec(N) 7.50(+7bps)*

Brent 69.04

USD/INR 63.8