Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented the Budget against a backdrop of slowing expansion and creeping inflation which has hit the poor hardest.

The highlights of this year budget are as follows :

• Tax exemption for women increased to Rs 1.8 lakh
• New tax slabs: 10 per cent for 1,50,000 to 3,00,000, 20 per cent for 3,00,000 to 5,00,000 and 30 per cent above 5,00,000
• Excise on packaged softwares to be lower from 8% to 12%
• No excise duty on refrigerating equipments
• Anti-Aids drug exempted from excise duty
• Small cars to become cheaper
• Reduced excise duty on two, three wheelers
• Excise duty on hybrid cars cut from 24 pct to 14 pct
• Excise on small cars cut to 12 pct from 16 pct
• Rs 50 cr for tiger conservation
• Sixth Pay Commission report by March 2008
• Defence allocation up by 10% from Rs 96,000 cr to Rs 1,56,000 cr
• 22 Sainik schools get Rs 44 crore
• Rs 624 cr for Commonwealth Games
• PAN sole identification in securities market
• Debt waiver scheme and relief to small and marginal farmers
• Duty reduced on life saving drugs
• Rs 750 crore for upgradation of 300 ITIs in 25 districts.
• No change in peak customs duty
• Money changers and people running gains of chance and tour operators to be brought under service tax net
• Revenue Deficit is Rs 55,184 cr at 1% of GDP and fiscal deficit is Rs 1,33,287 cr at 3.1% of GDP
• Estimated planned expenditure at Rs 2,43,086 cr and non-panned expenditure Rs 57,409 cr
• Central Plans Scheme monitoring system under Plan Panel to be unveiled
• Non-agri peak rates for customs raises to 10% from 2% in 2004
• Tax to GDP ratio at 9.2% in 2004 up by 12.5% in 2007-08
• Custom duty on steel scrapped
• Set-top boxes to become cheaper
• Custom duty on vitamin pre-mixes to lower from 30% to 20%
• Agri loans disbursed by rural banks, RRBs and Cooperative banks before March 2007 and overdue on Dec 2007 waived
• Overdue agri loans amount to Rs 50,000 cr under the waiver and Rs 10,000 cr under the one time settlement
• Implementation of waiver to be completed by June 2008
• Farmers eligible for fresh agri loans post the waiver or one time settlement
• Haryana and Chandigarh to introduce smart card based delivery system under PDS
• National Agri Insurance scheme get Rs 640 cr
• National Highway development program gets Rs 12966 cr
• Rs 8000 cr plan for faster power reforms
• National housing bank gets Rs 1,200 cr for refinancing
• Govt asks commercial banks to add 250 rural household accounts every year in rural and semi-urban banks
• States urged to open bidding for 5 more ultra mega power projects
• All 30 integrated textile parks approved
• Rs 340 cr insurance scheme to cover 17 lakh farmers and weavers
• SITP gets Rs 450 crore
• Rs 275 cr earmarked for state data centres
• NHDP allocation up from Rs 10,866 cr to Rs 12,966 cr
• Move towards nutrient-based fertiliser subsidy stressed
• National fund for transmission and distribution reforms for power sector
• FDI in Apr-Dec at $12.7 billion, FII inflow over $18 billion
• PNB says banks to be reimbursed accordingly
• Tea Research association gets Rs 20 cr
• 500 soil testing labs to be set up in the 11th plan, govt to give 1 time budgetary assistance of Rs 75 cr to agri ministry for setting up mobile soil testing facilities
• National Horticulure Mission to get Rs 1,100 cr
• Govt sets up irrigation and water resource finance corp with an initial corpus of Rs 100 cr
• Schedule Commercial Banks farm credit 75%
• Micro irrigation scheme gets Rs 500 cr to cover 4,00,000 additional hectares
• Rs 12050 cr for strengthening rural health services
• 24 pct allocation hike for women, child development
• Inflation will be kept under check
• Jawaharlal Navoday Vidyalaya to be set in 20 new districts for SC/STs
• Healthcare allocation to be raised by 15%
• Bhopal and Tripura to get one IIScR each and 2 colleges of art
• 288 public sector bank branches to be opened in areas with concentration of minorities
• Irrigation outlay increased
• National Minority Development and Finance Corp to get Rs 75 cr
• More funds for North East
• 54 gender budgeting cells set up
• Agriculture share in total investment up from 10.2% in 2003-04 to 16% during the 11th Plan
• Agri credit target to be Rs 2,80,000 cr for 2008-09
• LIC to cover all woman SHGs linked to the bank
• Mobilisation of additional resources of Rs 10,000 cr as planned capital expenditure under Plan-B
• Allocation for ministry of minorities doubled to Rs 1,000 cr
• Schemes for woman to get Rs 1,460 cr this fiscal
• Child related schemes to get Rs 33,434 cr
• 54 departments to be set up gender budgeting divisions
• Rajiv Gandhi drinking water mission to get Rs 7,300 cr
• Rs 3,966 cr for SC/STs schemes
• Allocation of Rs 75 cr for 2008-09 for the Rajiv Gandhi felicitation programme
• Sanitation to get Rs1,200 cr
• Rs 200 cr for providing portable water system in each school in areas of water scarce regions
• IT industry gets Rs 100 cr for connecting knowledge institutions
• NREGS to be extended to 596 rural distt with an outlay of Rs 16,000cr
• The remuneration Angan Bari workers has been increased from Rs 1000 cr-1500 cr per month
• Women entitled to equal share and equal say
• Science scholarships for young learners
• 16 Central universities to be set up
• 6000 model high schools to be started
• Science scholarships for young learners
• Inflation will be kept under check
• More allocation for polio and AIDS
• Health covers of Rs 30000 for workers in unorganised sectors
• Education sector gets a boost
• Agri credit doubled in first two years
• Bharat Nirman allocation to go up to Rs 31,280 cr from Rs 24,603 cr
• Gross Budgetary support to be Rs 24,3386 cr about Rs 38,286 cr more than 2007-08
• Agriculture credit to touch 2,40,000 cr in 2008
• Focus on achievement of self-sufficiency in food grain
• Soyabean output to be 9.45 mn tonnes
• Maize production to be 16.78 mn tonnes
• Rice production to be 94.08 mn tonnes
• Total agri production to be 219.32 mn tonnes at all time high
• Agriculture disappointing at average annual growth of 2.6%
• Keeping inflation under check to be on focus
• Focus on management of supply side of food, market, capital inflows next year
• India has registered a growth of over 8% for 12 successive quarters till Dec 2007
• New IITs to come up in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh