Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the Union Budget 2010-11 in parliament on Monday(28-02-2011).

Here are some of the highlights:

·        Exemption limit for the general category of individual taxpayers enhanced from

Rs 1,60,000 to Rs 1,80,000. For senior citizens, the qualifying age reduced to 60 years from the present 65 years and exemption limit raised to Rs 2.50 lakh. Citizens over 80 years to have exemption limit of Rs 5 lakh. No Change in women tax exemption limit i.e1,90,000.

·        Total expenditure proposed at Rs 12, 57,729 crore. Increase of 18.3 per cent in total Plan allocation i.e Rs 4, 41,547 crores . Increase of 10.9 per cent in the Non-plan expenditure i.e Rs 8, 16,182 crores.

·        Indian economy expected to grow at 9 per cent with an outside band of +/- 0.25 per cent in 2011-12. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated to have grown at 8.6 per cent in 2010-11 in real terms.

·        Fiscal Deficit brought down from 5.5 per cent in BE 2010-11 to 5.1 per cent of GDP in RE 2010-11. Fiscal Deficit kept at 4.6 per cent of GDP for 2011-12. Fiscal Deficit to be progressively reduced to 3.5 per cent by 2013-14.

·        “Effective Revenue Deficit” estimated at 2.3 per cent of GDP in the Revised Estimates for 2010-11 and 1.8 per cent for 2011-12.

·        Priority sector home loans limit raised to Rs. 25 lakh from Rs. 20 lakh.

·        Current surcharge of 7.5 per cent on domestic companies proposed to be reduced to 5 per cent.

·        Rate of Minimum Alternative Tax proposed to be increased from 18 per cent to

18.5 per cent of book profits.

·        Central Excise Duty to be maintained at standard rate of 10 per cent.

·        Disinvestment in 2011-12 seen at 400 billion rupees.

·        Provision of Rs 1,64,415 crore, including Rs 69,199 crore for capital expenditure to be made for Defence Services in 2011-12.

·        Rs 6,000 crore to be provided during 2011-12 to enable public sector banks to maintain a minimum of Tier I CRAR of 8 per cent.

·        Rs 500 crore to be provided to enable Regional Rural Banks to maintain a CRAR of at least 9 per cent as on March 31, 2012.

·        Rs 5,000 crore to be provided to SIDBI for refinancing incremental lending by banks to these enterprises.

·        Rs 3,000 crore to be provided to NABARD to provide support to handloom weaver co-operative societies which have become financially unviable due to non-repayment of debt by handloom weavers facing economic stress.

·        Allocation under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) increased from Rs 6,755 crore to Rs 7,860 crore.

·        Credit flow for farmers raised from Rs 3,75,000 crore to Rs 4,75,000 crore in 2011-12.

·        Allocation of Rs 2,14,000 crore for infrastructure in 2011-12.  This is an increase of 23.3 per cent over 2010-11.This also amounts to 48.5 per cent of total plan allocation.

·        National Food Security Bill (NFSB) to be introduced in the Parliament during the course of this year.

·        Allocation for social sector in 2011-12 (` 1,60,887 crore) increased by 17 per cent over current year. It amounts to 36.4 per cent of total plan allocation.

·        Allocation for social sector in 2011-12 (` 1,60,887 crore) increased by 17 percent over current year. It amounts to 36.4 per cent of total plan allocation.

·        Allocation for Bharat Nirman programme proposed to be increased by ` 10,000 crore from the current year to Rs 58,000 crore in 2011-12.

·        Plan to provide Rural Broadband Connectivity to all 2,50,000 Panchayats in the country in three years.

·        From 1st April, 2011, remuneration of Anganwadi workers increased from Rs 1,500 per month to Rs 3,000 per month and for Anganwadi helpers from Rs 750 per month to Rs 1,500 per month.

·        Allocation for primitive Tribal groups increased from Rs185 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 244 crore in 2011-12.

·        21,000 crore allocated to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which is 40 per cent higher than Budget for 2010-11.

·        Target of providing banking facilities to all 73,000 habitations having a population of over 2,000 to be completed during 2011-2012.

·        Eligibility for pension under Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme for BPL beneficiaries reduced from 65 years of age to 60 years. Those above 80 years of age will get pension of Rs 500 per month instead of ` 200 at present.

·        Rs 200 crore proposed to be allocated for Green India Mission from National Clean Energy Fund.

·        Rs 200 crore proposed to be allocated for launching Environmental Remediation Programmes from National Clean Energy Fund.

·        Special allocation of ` 200 crore proposed to be provided for clean-up of some more important lakes and rivers other than Ganga.

·        Rs 8,000 crore provided in current year for development needs of Jammu and Kashmir.

·        Allocation made in 2011-12 to meet the infrastructure needs for Ladakh (` 100 crore) and Jammu region (` 150 crore).

·        A new scheme with an outlay of ` 300 crore to be launched to provide assistance to States to modernise their stamp and registration administration and roll out e-stamping in all the districts in the next three years.

·        A new simplified form ‘Sugam’ to be introduced to reduce the compliance burden of small tax payers falling within presumptive taxation.