Indian economy is now 2.5 trillion dollar economy – seventh largest in the world. India stands out among the fastest growing economies of the world. The journey of economic reforms during the past few years has been challenging but rewarding. As a result of the reforms undertaken by the Government, foreign direct investment has gone up.
Governance, Economy and Development
IMF, in its latest Update, has forecast that India will grow at 7.4% next year.The services, mainstay of our growth, have also resumed their high growth rates of 8% plus. Our exports are expected to grow at 15% in 2017-18.
Under Saubhagya Yojna 4 crore household are being provided with electricity connections.
More than 800 medicines are being sold at lower price through more than 3 thousand Jan Aushadhi Centres.
Certificate attestation is not mandatory, interviews for appointment in Group C and Group D posts have been done
away with. These measures have saved time and money of lakhs of our youth.
The demonetization of high value currency has reduced the quantum of cash currency and circulation in India. It has increased the taxation base and spurred greater digitization of the economy.
A major transformation is reflected in improvement of India’s ranking by 42 places in last three years in the
World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ with India breaking into top 100 for the first time.
Investment, Expenditure and Policy Initiatives
Our country’s farmers agriculture production in our country is at a record level. Doing the year 2016-17 we achieved a record food grain production of around 275 million tonnes and around 300 million tonnes of fruits and vegetables.
Government has decided to keep MSP for the all unannounced crops of kharif at least at one and half times of their production cost.
Government had announced strengthening of e-NAM and to expand coverage of e-NAM to 585 APMCs. 470 APMCs have been connected to e-NAM network and rest will be connected by March, 2018.
Government will develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). In these GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGA and other Government Schemes. These GrAMs, electronically linked to e-NAM and exempted from regulations of APMCs,Government will provide farmers facility to make direct sale to consumers and bulk purchasers.
An Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of `2000 crore will be set up for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure.
Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana Phase III will include linkages which connect habitations to agricultural and rural markets (GrAMs), higher secondary schools and hospitals with the target date brought forward to March, 2019 from March 2022.
Organic farming by Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and Village Producers’ Organizations (VPOs) in large clusters, preferably of 1000 hectares each, will be encouraged. Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) will also be encouraged to take up organic agriculture in clusters under National Rural Livelihood Programme.
Government shall support organized cultivation and associated industry. Budget propose to allocate a sum of `200 crore for this purpose.
Prime Minister Krishi Sampada Yojana is a flagship programme for boosting investment in food processing. Allocation of Ministry of Food Processing is being doubled from `715 crore in RE 2017-18 to `1400 crore in BE 2018-19.
Government propose to launch a Re-structured National Bamboo Mission with an outlay of `1290 crore to
promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.
Government announce setting up a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry sector. Total Corpus of these two new Funds would be `10,000 crore.
Prime Minister Awas Yojana has been launched in rural and urban areas of the country. Under Prime Minister Awas Scheme Rural, 51 lakhs houses in year 2017-18 and 51 lakh houses during 2018-19 which is
more than one crore houses will be constructed exclusively in rural areas.
Ground water irrigation scheme under Prime Minister Krishi Sinchai Yojna- Har Khet ko Pani will be taken up in 96 deprived irrigation districts .Rs`2600 crore’ is allocated for this purpose.
Health, Education and Social Protection
Government is implementing acomprehensive social security and protection programme to reach every
household of old, widows, orphaned children, divyaang and deprived asper the Socio-Economic Caste Census. Allocation on National Social Assistance Programme this year has been kept at `9975 crore.
Government propose to increase the digital intensity in education and move gradually from ‘‘black board’’ to ‘‘digital board’’. Technology will also be used to upgrade the skills of teachers through the recently launched digital portal ‘‘DIKSHA’’.
It has been decided that by the year 2022, every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal persons, will have an Ekalavya Model Residential School.
To step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions, including health institutions, finance minister propose to launch a major initiative named ‘‘Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022’’ with a total investment of`1,00,000 crore in next four years.
The Government would launch the ‘‘Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF)’’ Scheme this year. Under this, we would identify 1,000 best B.Tech students each year from premier institutions and provide them facilities to do Ph.D in IITs and IISc, with a handsome fellowship.
Finance minister announce two major initiatives as part of ‘‘Ayushman Bharat programme” aimed at making path breaking interventions to address health holistically, in primary, secondary and tertiary care system covering both prevention and health promotion.
Present Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana(RSBY) provide annual coverage of only `30,000 to poor families. Several State Governments have also implemented/supplemented health protection schemes providing varying coverage.
A flagship National Health Protection Scheme will be launch to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage upto 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
Government has, decided to allocate additional `600 crore to provide nutritional support to all TB patients at the rate of `500 per month for the duration of their treatment.
Government will launch a Scheme called Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan (GOBAR-DHAN) for
management and conversion of cattle dung and solid waste in farms to compost, fertilizer, bio-gas and bio-CNG.
Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Beema Yojana (PMJJBY) has benefitted 5.22 crore families with a life insurance cover of `2 lakh on payment of a premium of only `330/- per annum.
Likewise, under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, 13 crore 25 lakh persons have been insured with personal accident cover of `2 lakh on payment of a premium of only `12 per annum.
Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme launched in January 2015 has been a great success. Until November, 2017 more than 1.26crore accounts have been opened across the country in the name of girlchild securing an amount of `19,183 crore.
A total of 187 projects have been sanctioned under the Namami Gange programme for infrastructure development, river surface cleaning, rural sanitation and other interventions at a cost of `16,713 crore.
Economic and social advancement of hard working people of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) has received core attention of Government. Our Government increased total earmarkedallocation for SCs in 279 programmes from `34,334 crore in 2016-17 to `52,719 crore in RE 2017-18.
Likewise, for Scheduled Tribes (STs), earmarked allocation was increased from `21,811 crore in 2016-17 to `32,508 crore in RE 2017-18 in 305 programmes. Finance minister propose an earmarked allocation of `56,619 crore for SCs and `39,135 crore for STs in BE 2018-19.
Government’s estimated schematic budgetary expenditure on health, education and social protection for 2018-19 is `1.38 lakh crore against estimated expenditure of `1.22 lakh crore in BE 2017-18.
