CHANDIGARH : The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Lal, has hailed the Union Budget, which for the first time includes Railway Budget, for 2017-18, presented by the Union Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, in Parliament today, as a big, bold and reformist measure and pro-common man and pro-farmer and will give demand, economy and digitilisation, a decisive push.
Reacting to the Budget proposals here today, the Chief Minister was all praise for the government’s move to bring the much-needed reforms in political funding by making the political parties file income tax returns, and lowering the maximum cash donation received by any party from one source to only Rs 2,000 from Rs 20,000. “The Budget more than reflects the thinking and pro-poor vision of the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi”, he added.
Hailing the renewed commitment of the NDA Government to double the income of farmers in five years, Mr Manohar Lal said that allocation of Rs 10 lakh crore for farm credit by banks, setting up of an irrigation fund by NABARD, Rs 8000-crore Dairy Processing Infra Fund and expansion of the national agriculture market will give the farmers, agriculture and the allied sector, the much needed boost.
The Budget gives salaried people big relief by reducing the tax from 10 per cent to five per cent on income between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh; housing a boost by vowing to complete one crore houses by 2019 and reducing the holding period for land and building to two from three years; and industry the space by reducing corporate tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent for companies with turn-over of Rs 50 crore, the Chief Minister said.
Mixing fiscal prudence with sagacious use of resources at his command, Mr Jaitley has given infrastructure the muscle it needs with the allocation of Rs 3.96 lakh crore which will help create lakhs of jobs.
The Finance Minister has given digitalisation a push by disallowing transactions over Rs three lakh in cash and targeting 2,500 crore digital transactions across platforms like UPI. All these measures, put together, shall place the economy in high-growth trajectory and create jobs for lakhs of people, Mr Manohar Lal added.
