In the second budget of the Narendra Modi government, Hon’ble Finance Minister Arun Jaitley focused on boosting growth, building infrastructure and controlling prices. Hon’ble Minister pledged, “change, growth, jobs and genuine, effective upliftment of the poor,” while emphasising development of roads, power, ports, and housing. The Budget aims to kick-start the investment cycle, and has aimed at structural changes that are likely to help drive investment on a sustainable basis. While the Government has stuck to 3% fiscal deficit of GDP, it aims to meet the target only by 2017-18. The total additional public investment is planned to be Rs 1.25 lakh crore, of which Rs 70,000 crore would be capital expenditure from budgetary outlays. The Union Budget also proposed measures to curb the flow of black money and has committed to simplification and rationalisation of the taxation structure. In another step towards growth, the Finance Minister announced reduction of the basic corporate tax rate by 5 percentage points to 25 percent in the next four years. The document highlights the announcements made in the budget specific to

1. Government reiterates commitment to indigenous manufacturing of defence equipment
• Allocated INR 2.46 lakh cr in the defence budget, an increase of approximate 10 per cent
over last year
• Allocated capital expenditure of ` 3588.03 crores to the Department of Defence and INR
94,588 cr to Department of Defence services
Defence