Budget is beautifully textured to assuage people's pain developed in them owing to to the government’s seriousness in demonetization. Through the Budget it tried to pacify the aroused aggression with in the public and in view of the elections in five states. 


Finance Minister Arun Jaitley laid out on Wednesday a national budget that aimed to spend more on rural areas and to build infrastructure, as he sought to lift growth and assuage people’s pain from the government’s drive to purge the economy of “black money”.


The budget saw Arun Jaitley easing up on cutting the deficit, and announcing increases in allocation across sectors, including a 24% hike in spending on rural India and another 35% more to improve the lives of Dalits. His infrastructure outlay for the financial year starting April 1 was pegged at a whopping Rs 3.9-lakh crore.


“My approach in preparing the budget is to spend more on rural areas, infrastructure and poverty alleviation with fiscal prudence,” he told parliament, adding that the impact of demonetization would not spill over to the next financial year.


“We are moving from informal to formal economy and the government is now seen as a trusted custodian of public money.”


The budget was keenly watched for government measures to tackle the fallout of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision in November to ban 500-and 1,000-rupee currency notes removing 86% of cash in circulation in a bid to fight corruption and tax evasion.


The cash crunch is expected to hurt the economy in the October-December quarter of 2016, with economists predicting growth slowing to a near 3-year low of 6.5%.


Jaitley’s budget also appeared to keep an eye on a string of state elections beginning this week, where the so-called demonetization move is likely to influence the vote, among other things.


He increased funds allocated for scheduled castes by one third to Rs 52,000 crore and said many new enterprises had been set up under the Stand Up India program aimed at helping women, Dalit and tribal entrepreneurs.


The increased allocation might help the BJP especially in Punjab – where Dalits make up one third of the population – and in crucial Uttar Pradesh, where scheduled castes can make a difference in at least 100 seats. The two states are among five voting this month.


A vast majority of voters in these states live in rural areas, which received abundant attention from Arun  Jaitley who hiked spending on rural, agricultural and allied sectors by 24% to a record Rs1.87 lakh crore for the Financial Year  2017-18.


Finance minister Arun Jaitley gave the salaried class a relief in the 2017 budget, bringing down personal income tax limits for the lowest slab, a move aimed at softening the demonetization blow.


For those with income of Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, a tax rate of 5% will be applicable against the current 10%. Besides, a surcharge of 10% will be applicable for those earning Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore. The surcharge of 15% will continue for all earning Rs 1 crore and above.

The increase in surcharge will help the government earn more.

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