Union Budget 2017-18: Full speech of Arun Jaitley
The Union Budget for 2017-18 focused on lifting rural incomes while simultaneously pressing ahead with reforms in several sectors of the Indian economy. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday proposed to ban all cash transactions above Rs 3 lakh beginning April 1 with eased income tax rates for those with modest income. He also proposed to slash corporate taxes for small and medium firms with income under Rs 50 crore to 25 percent. The Budget focussed on lifting rural incomes while simultaneously pressing ahead with reforms in several sectors of the Indian economy
The full Union Budget 2017 speech: Madam Speaker, 1. On this auspicious day of Vasant Panchami, I rise to present the Budget for 2017-18. Spring is a season of optimism. I extend my warm greetings to everyone on this occasion. 2. Madam Speaker, our Government was elected amidst huge expectations of the people. The underlying theme of countless expectations was good governance. The expectations included burning issues like inflation and price rise, corruption in day to day transactions and crony capitalism. There was also expectation for a major change in the way the country's natural resources were allocated, processed and deployed
3. In the last two and half years, it has been our mission to bring a Transformative Shift in the way our country is governed. We have moved - from a discretionary administration to a policy and system based administration; - from favouritism to transparency and objectivity in decision making; - from blanket and loose entitlements to targeted delivery; and - from informal economy to formal economy. Inflation, which was in double digits, has been controlled; sluggish growth has been replaced by high growth; and a massive war against black money has been launched. We have worked tirelessly on all these fronts and feel encouraged by the unstinted support of the people to our initiatives. The Government is now seen as a trusted custodian of public money. I take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the people of India for their strong support.
. We shall continue to undertake many more measures to ensure that the fruits of growth reach the farmers, the workers, the poor, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, women and other vulnerable sections of our society. Our focus will be on energising our youth to reap the benefits of growth and employment. 5. Madam Speaker, I am presenting this Budget when the world economy faces considerable uncertainty, in the aftermath of major economic and political developments during the last one year. Nevertheless, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that world GDP will grow by 3.1% in 2016 and 3.4% in 2017. The advanced economies are expected to increase their growth from 1.6% to 1.9% and the emerging economies from 4
.1% to 4.5%. As per current indications, macro-economic policy is expected to be more expansionary in certain large economies. Growth in a number of emerging economies is expected to recover in 2017, after relatively poor performance in 2016. These are positive signs and point to an optimistic outlook for the next year
6. There are, however, three major challenges for emerging economies. First, the current monetary policy stance of the US Federal Reserve, to increase the policy rates more than once in 2017, may lead to lower capital inflows and higher outflows from the emerging economies. Second, the uncertainty around commodity prices, especially that of crude oil, has implications for the fiscal situation of emerging economies. It is however expected that increase, if any, in oil prices would get tempered by quick response from producers of shale gas and oil. This would have a sobering impact on prices of crude and petroleum. Third, in several parts of the world, there are signs of increasing retreat from globalisation of goods, services and people, as pressures for protectionism are building up. These developments have the potential to affect exports from a number of emerging markets, including India
