EXCLUSIVE: "Budget has nothing to do with elections, it's a continuation of Centre's support to create new India," says Union Minister Arun Jaitley

Union Minister Arun Jaitley spoke to Republic TV's Arnab Goswami about the budget schemes and allotments being a continuation of its support to create new India. He mentioned the Centre's effort to create a middle class through tax rebates and how it helped the population.

"Nothing to do with elections, continuation of our support to create new India which is part of government's agenda. Every budget, the middle class has received repeated relief hence we exempted people with taxable income of Rs 2 lakh, then for people with taxable income of Rs 3 lakh from paying taxes, then we reduced slab from 10 % to 5 %.

"The latest one is so that a large part of middle class gets tax exempted so that they have more money in pockets to spend and it comes back to govt as indirect taxes and its a continuation of the programme of our government," he said.

He also spoke about the new welfare scheme Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sammaan Nidhi.

"We are already reaching rural areas with farmers getting cheaper LPG connections, MNREGA, Ayushmaan Bharat scheme etc. If the responsive government has done so much for the farmers and you still see fiscal space for government support for farmers, this is the support in terms of income. We are in business cooperative federalism. This is going to be Rs 75,000 crore to start with," he said. 

"Congress once gave loan waiver of Rs 70,000 of which Rs 52000 was given to the traders as per CAG report.

"Whatever Centre does the state has to top it, the farmers have to be the responsibility of everyone," he added.

In a massive boost for the middle-class tax payers of the country, stand-in Finance Minister Piyush Goyal during the interim budget 2019 speech stated that his NDA government has proposed that those earning up to Rs 5 lakh per annum will be exempted from paying income tax.

It has been proposed that in the Union budget, there shall be full tax rebate for any individual earning Rs 5 lakh yearly, meaning they won't be needed to pay income tax.

"While for the present, the existing rates for income tax will continue for FY 19-20, I propose the following changes. Individual tax payers having taxable income up to Rs 5 lakhs will get full tax rebate. Therefore, they will not be required to pay any tax," Piyush Goyal said.

READ: Union Budget 2019: Union Minister Piyush Goyal defends hike in fuel prices, says ‘People trust PM Modi with every rupee’