Giving relief to individual taxpayers, the government on Monday raised the Income Tax exemption limit by Rs 10,000 for general taxpayers and by Rs 15,000 for senior citizens. For general taxpayers, income of up to Rs 1.6 lakh per annum for men and Rs 1.90 lakh per annum for women is tax-exempt. Senior citizens will not have to pay tax up to an annual income of Rs 2.4 lakh. Announcing these measures while presenting the Budget for 2009-10, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said his direct tax proposals are revenue-neutral and would not result in any revenue loss. Besides, the government pleased its constituency ‘aam admi’ (common man) by keeping its poll promise with a proposal to enact a Food Security Act for providing 25 kg of rice or wheat a month to the poor at Rs three per kg. Attaching the highest priority for infrastructure, where government institutions and banks could finance Rs one lakh crore for projects in addition with private flow, Mukherjee said that the present conditions and uncertainty about global recovery would make it difficult for him to focus on fiscal deficit which would shoot to 6.8 per cent from 2.7 per cent last year. He said additional revenue would be mobilised through disinvestment of government equity in public sector undertakings and other steps, but said that interest payment alone would be over Rs three lakh crore largely on account of the burden of stimulus packages announced last year that helped the economy grow by 6.7 per cent. However, he said that government would have the ownership of banks and insurance companies even as disinvestment takes off while reitereating that state holding in these entities would be at least 51 per cent. Mukherjee also announced a number of sector specific incentives, particularly for those that promote employment, and announced a hike in provision for flagship schemes like NREGA by 144 per cent to Rs 39,100 crore and said that government would also provide a minimum of Rs 100 a day under the job guarantee scheme.
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