After announcing the Union Budget 2018-19 on 1 February, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held a press conference to address questions on the Budget.

Underlining that the government has exceeded the fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent at 3.5 per cent, the Finance Minister said that this year’s budget on the GST revenue is a 12-month Budget based on revenue of 11 months only.

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“This factor must be borne into mind when we calculate deficit target,” he said.

“We covered up through direct tax revenues and extra disinvestment. But I think a small gap has been left behind,” he said.

Addressing the concerns that the budget “punishes” the middle class, Jaitley said that a lot of measures have been taken to actually help the middle class.

“Step by step, in every budget, I have been putting surplus money in the hands of the middle-class taxpayer,” he said.

“Our senior citizens are a very important part of middle class. We have given an additional avenue of investment to them,” he pointed out citing the increase in exemptions granted to the class.

“We already have the lowest tax slab for people earning under Rs 5 lakh,” he said.

The Finance Minister, who presented the Union Government’s last full Budget before the nation heads to polls in 2019, said that the government has looked at areas which require the maximum support.

“Priority was thus given to farmers and those who are financially poor,” Jaitley said.

Read More: Union Budget 2018-19 | What Jaitley said in Budget Speech

The government’s efforts have been to help those people through scheme such as Ujjwala Scheme and the mega health scheme announced today, he added.

The mega health scheme that Jaitley referred to is the National Health Protection scheme.

The scheme, which has been hailed by everyone, has been launched to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. Approximately 50 crore beneficiaries will be provided up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisations.

Read More: Union Budget 2018: Rs 5 lakh healthcare cover for 10 crore poor families, says Jaitley

“It is the world’s largest government funded healthcare programme,” Jaitley said while presenting the Budget in the Parliament.

A provision of Rs 2,000 crore has been provided and further provisioning will be done subsequently.

The government said that it is working out various models, trust or insurance, on which the scheme will run.

Jaitley said the infrastructure, such as construction of rural roads, railways, ports, airports etc, is a priority.

He also defended the return of the LTCG citing what he mentioned in the Budget Speech.

When asked to comment on the global crude oil prices, Jaitley remarked that he cannot share views on the same because no one can predict it.

“There is a certain range which keeps us comfortable. We are almost at the verge where things can become uncomfortable,” he warned in the same breath.

Read More: BJP lauds Union Budget 2018, Opposition terms it ‘disappointing’

He also said that the scheme to fix the salaries of the parliamentarians has been planned after criticism that it is the only class which fixes its own salary.

“We made mechanism that one time fixation will take place on 1 Feb 2018 and thereafter every five years it will be self operating, indexed to inflation,” he said.