Union Budget Highlights

• Government plans to set up a five hundred crore rupees women self help groups development fund
• Age of senior citizens for tax benefits reduced from 65 to 60 years and Exemption limit for new category of very senior citizens over the age of 80 and above will be five lakh rupees.
• Income Tax exemption limit for individuals raised from one lakh 60 thousand to one lakh 80 thousand rupees.
• Two fold increase in remuneration for Anganwadi workers and helpers and Safai Karamcharis.
• Govt proposes to give 13 thousand crore to NABARD for helping cooperative sectors.
• The present corpus of 16 thousand crore rupees for Rural infrastructure development fund enhanced to 18 thousand crore rupees.
• Direct Taxes Code (DTC), which will replace the Income Tax Act, is proposed to be implemented from April 1, 2012.
• GDP growth is pegged at 8.6 percent, agriculture 5.4 percent, industry 8.1 percent and services 9.6 percent in the current fiscal.
• Scheme of 1 percent interest subvention on housing loans to be raised from 10 to 15 lakh rupees
• Economy in next fiscal is expected to grow at the rate of nine percent.
• Banking regulation act to be amended.
• Credit flow to the farmers to be raised from three lakh seventy five thousand crore rupees to four lakh seventy thousand crore rupees
• Farmers who repay their loans in time will pay four per cent interest on the loans.
• Allocation for social sector increased by 17 % and education by 24 %
• Allocation for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan increased by 40 % to 21 thousand crore rupees
• Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna extended to Mahatma Gandhi NREGA workers and Bidi workers
• Old age pension for BPL people proposed to be increased from two hundred to five hundred rupees
• Banking facilities extended to 50 thousand more villages in the next financial year.