The BJP-led NDA government today presented its last budget, before the country heads to polls in less than 100 days. In his budget speech, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal made several announcements and some 'proposals' specifically targeting farmers and middle-class households of the country.
With a number of schemes and projects mentioned—in an apparent report card of the NDA government—by the FM throughout his speech, there were some words which found more space in the 2-hour-long speech.
For instance, the word 'tax' was used the most, with at least 28 references made, owing to mentions of the Goods and Services Tax and the proposal by the FM to raise the tax exemption limit on individual taxpayers to Rs 5 lakhs from the current Rs 2.5 lakh.
The tax exemption proposal, however, was left to be implemented by the next government in a full budget, which would only come into effect in 2020.
The second most used words were 'income' and 'farmers', mentioned 17 times throughout the speech. These were particularly used in reference to Goyal's announcement of a Direct Benefit Transfer scheme – the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKISAN).
Under the scheme a direct transfer of Rs 6,000 per year will be made to the bank accounts of farmers owning less than two hectares of land, Goyal told the parliament on Friday. According to the Agriculture Survey 2015-16, the small and marginal holdings taken together (0.00-2.00 hectare) constituted 86.21 per cent in 2015-16 against 84.97 per cent in 2010-11 while their share in the operated area stood 47.34 per cent in the current census as against 44.31 per cent in 2010-11.
Other words used extensively throughout the speech were 'GST', 'loans', 'poor', 'pradhan mantri', 'health', 'women' etc.
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