1 February 2019: Finance Minister, Piyush Goyal presented the Interim Union Budget 2019-2020 on 1 February 2019 in the Lok Sabha. The highlights of the budget are as follows:
Labour
To provide social security coverage to workers earning below ₹15,000 per month in the informal sector, government has announced “Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan” scheme. A monthly pension of ₹3000 will be provided to beneficiaries upon attainment of 60 years of age. The government has allocated a sum of ₹500 crore for the scheme. While it has proposed ₹750 crore for protection of cows through the Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
Agriculture
Under the new Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme ₹6000 will be transferred to small and marginal landholding farmers in 3 installments who own cultivable land of less than 2 hectares. The scheme would have a retrospective effect and be effective from December, 2018 benefitting around 12 crore small farmers. For this purpose ₹20,000 crore and ₹75,000 crore have been allocated for financial year 2018-19 and 2019-20 respectively.