My heartfelt thanks to Finance Minister Sri Arun Jaitley ji for this budget. Our focus is on the villages, poor, farmers, women and the youth. The budget has plans for ambitious schemes to bring in a qualitative change in their lives.

This budget presents a comprehensive , time bound action plan for poverty alleviation. Several measures have been outlined to double the income of the farmers. Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana is one of them where a substantial allocation has been made to ensure water to every farm.

All of us know the importance of power and road infrastructure . There is a vision in this budget to connect every village to road by 2019. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana has been allocated substantial funds to connect the rural India by roads. Besides there is a clear plan to provide electricity to every village by 2018.

It will give an impetus to rural economy and bring about positive changes .If you ask a poor man, he will clearly share his dream. Owning a house is his biggest dream. Everyone from a middle class or neo middle class wants to own a house. How are we going to help them realize this dream? This is not possible without the help of the government. That’s why provisions have been made this time to give impetus to the housing sector and ensure a house to general household.

People who are living in rented house have also got increased rebate in Income Tax over House Rent. Those who are earning up to 5 lakhs will have to pay lesser tax.

There has been a lot of politics over the poor. You will be amazed to know that if a poor lady who cooks food for her children using a Chulha faces adverse impact on her and her children’s health. Experts say that the smoke of that chulha , is equivalent to the smoke of 400 cigarettes per day. We have to help people below the poverty line and that’s why we have decided to provide free gas connection to such people.

5 crore families who use chulha for cooking will get freedom from smoke. Poor will get health benefits and environment will protected as well.

Our government is also taking important decisions in health sector. At times, an ailment can destroy life of a poor family or a middle class family or a neo middle class family. We have presented schemes for senior citizens who are in dire need of help.

Our country should be safe, our citizens should feel safe and our forces should be equipped with modern defence equipment and our soldiers should get One Rank One Pension post retirement. This budget has made provisions for boosting defence manufacturing and providing the armed forces with modern and potent equipment.

You might have seen that in infrastructure a provision of more than 2 lakh crore Rupees has been made. This will benefit our forces who are guarding our borders.

The youth of the country is moving ahead. In order to provide him employment opportunities we are going to come out with two new initiatives, ‘formalizing the informal’ and ‘employing the unemployed.’

My Mantra is Start Up India, Stand Up India. To provide a favorable ecosystem for startups, the budget has provided plans in the taxes. Our Dalit and Tribal youth now wants to become an entrepreneur. He doesn’t want to be Job Seeker anymore but a Job Creator. In order to make him realize his dream, the government has decided to establish an entrepreneurial hub.

The youth of the country should be able to face global challenges and should get opportunities in education . But due to archaic laws and regulations, education has suffered a lot and in order to improve it 10 public and 10 private institutions will be raised to global standards after selection through a challenge route. These institutes will be provided financial aid as well. This is a great initiative in educations sector. Once there will be an environment of competition among higher education institutes, you can imagine what impact will it bring.

Primary education is equally important. Till now, the governments have been focusing on expansions of primary education which was also important but in order to combat today’s challenges qualitative change is also required with expansion. Children in far flung villages should get education, they should get qualitative education, this is our focus. And this budget presents priorities to such qualitative issues.

Our government has always stood for having faith in our people.We should not doubt our country’s citizens. Income tax department officials should also have a sense of respect towards our public and that’s why a common citizen should be made free from complicated processes that he faces. Traders and professionals who are facing such problems should be made free from it. A common man who earns livelihood will be free from processes involving presumptive tax payment on turn over.

Once again, I congratulate Shri Arun Jaitley ji and I assure my countrymen that this budget is a budget of your dreams. This budget has presented the commitment of government towards realizations of your dreams.

Thanks