Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley spoke on the Key Reform Measures in his Budget speech 2016-17

1. The Government is firm on its course towards fiscal consolidation without compromising on its development agenda. 3.5% fiscal deficit is targeted for FY 2017.

2. Total allocation for Agriculture, Farmers’ welfare and Irrigation set at ₹ 47,912 cr, which is nearly twice the allocation of the previous year.

3. New Health Protection scheme will provide health cover up to ₹ 1 lakh per family and additional ₹ 30,000 for senior citizens.

4. Free LPG connections will be provided in the name of woman member of a family to 1.5 cr BPL households in 2016-17 and to continue for two more years to cover 5 cr households in total.

5. Massive increase in public spending on infrastructure to ₹ 2.21 lakh cr, an increase of 22.5% over the previous year.

6. Higher Education Financing Authority set up, with an initial capital base of ₹ 1,000 cr to promote higher education. In addition, 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions.

7. Promoting a tax-friendly regime and minimizing hassles due to litigation through a New Dispute Resolution Scheme with low or zero penalties. Ongoing tax cases can be settled with ease.

8. Increased relief for middle-class tax-payers by raising the ceiling of tax rebate under Section 87A to ₹ 5,000 for individuals with income less than ₹ 5 lakhs and by raising the limit of deduction of rent paid under section 80GG to ₹ 60,000.

9. Directly providing financial and other subsidies benefits to people who deserve them by enacting a new law and developing a social security platform using Aadhar.

10. Boosting formal sector employment by provisioning ₹ 1,000 cr towards contributing 8.33% on behalf of all new employees enrolling in EPFO for the first three years of their employment.

11. Simplified and pro-market tax measures such as laying out the roadmap of phasing out of exemptions under Corporate Taxes, abolishing small cesses, providing complete pass through of income-tax to securitization trusts and reducing period of obtaining long-term capital gains treatment for unlisted companies to three years.

12. Promoting entrepreneurship by increasing the turnover limit under Presumptive taxation scheme to ₹ 2 cr, targeting to disburse loans worth ₹ 1.8 lakh cr under PM Mudra Yojana and providing 100% deduction of profits for 3 out of 5 years for start-ups.

13. Facilitating Affordable Housing by 100% tax exemption for profits from small projects, not subjecting distribution REITs and INVITs to Dividend Distribution Tax and encouraging small first-time home buyers by deducting ¬additional interest of ₹ 50,000.

14. Reducing black money through a scheme to declare undisclosed income by paying 45% tax in a given compliance window.

15. Strengthening the financial sector by allocating ₹ 25,000 cr towards recapitalising Public Sector Banks (PSBs), listing Government-owned General Insurance companies, and spelling out a roadmap for consolidating PSBs.