India to grow at 8% soon, focus on education, healthcare, agri: FM Jaitley

In his last full Budget speech Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said India is poised to become $5 trillion economy soon from $2.5 trillion now. His speech focused more on the education, healthcare and agriculture.

"We are now a $ 2.5 trillion economy, and we are firmly on path to achieve 8 per cent plus growth soon," Jaitley said while delivering his Union Budget 2018-19 speech here.

"We hope to grow at 7.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent in the second half of 2017-18," he added.

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"Rural infra, livelihood expenditure to be Rs 14.34 lakh cr in 2018-"9," he added.

"From ease of doing business, our govt has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class," he said.

Jaitley said the government will set up a Rs 2,000 crore Agri-Market Development Fund.

Planning to boost micro, small and medium entreprises (MSME), the government plans to augment lending capacity under it to Rs 3 lakh crore in 2018-19.

He said two new planning and architecture schools to be set up in IITs. The government would use technology to improve education"from "blackboard to digital"'oard"'. It has allocated Rs 1.38 lakh crore in FY19 for government health and education programmes.

--IANS

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