Honorable Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley presented his Third Union Budget 2016-17 in parliament. The budget has received overwhelming response from various sectors and is louded as a progressive and reformist budget, aiming to curtail fiscal deficit, accelerate economic growth, and creating enormous employment opportunities. Towards this end, this budget is more focused on agro, rural, finance, infrastructure, educational, health and social sectors. This budget is also seen as an attempt to implement the vision programme of our Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi like Digital India, Make in India, Start-up India, etc.
Various proposal affecting the finance sector includes introduced: review of Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, enactment of Insolvency and bankruptcy code, Setting up of Financial Data Management Centre, development of new derivative products in commodity market by SEBI, developing of Corporate Bond Market giving more teeth to DRT, etc.
Initiatives on Social front are providing encouragement to entrepreneurship by Women and the unprivileged people. In a move to give further boost to Start-up India movement, the budget has proposed to provide tax relief to them, and aims to provide conducive environment for Start-ups. Social Sector reforms also include Government contribution to Employee Pension Scheme, streamlining of health care services and empowering Punchayat Raj Institutions with more governance capabilities.
The main features of the Union Budget 2016-17 are available at the following link: