Arun Jaitley concludes budget speech

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday wrapped up the presentation of general budget for fiscal 2015-16 in the Lok Sabha.

After he commended the budget to the house, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan sought a voice vote of preliminary acceptance in which the majority NDA MPs came out ahead of the opposition.

Thereafter, the Speaker adjourned proceedings in the House and said that it would meet again at 11 a.m. on Monday.

The budget speech lasted for about an hour and a half.

Some of the key highlights of the budget proposals for 2015-16 were as follows:

Estimated GDP is 7.4 percent.

Defence allocation for this fiscal is Rs 246,727 crores.

Unplanned expenditure for 2015-16 is estimated at Rs 13,12, 200 crores.

GST is expected to play a transformative role in Indian economy, we are moving on various fronts on GST from next year.

Challenges-Agricultural incomes are under stress, have to increase investment in infrastructure.

Challenges - manufacturing has declined from 18 percent to 17 percent of the GDP.

Tax buoyancy is lower but still we will meet the promise of Fiscal deficit of 4.1 percent of GDP this year.

Fiscal Deficit targets: FY15-16 3.9 percent, FY16-17 3.5 percent, FY 17-18 3 percent.

Propose the 'Nayi Manzil' Scheme for the youth minorities.

Will bring a bankruptcy code in the year 2015-16 that will meet global standards and provide for judicial capacity.

The government proposes a Mudra Bank of corpus of 20,000 crores to refinance the MFIs.Will fund the unfunded.

The government proposes to set up five ultra mega power projects, each of 4,000 MW, will be plug and play projects.

Will enhance the allocations to MNREGA by 5,000 crore.

In order to support security of women, I have decided to provide another 1000 crores to Nirbhaya fund.

I propose to set up All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in J-K, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Himachal and Assam.

Keeping in view the need to augment medical services in Bihar, I propose to set up another AIIMS like institution in the state.

I propose to set up IIT in Karnataka and IIM in J-K and Andhra Pradesh.