Union Budget 2018

Senior Citizens welfare in Budget

• An effort would be made to ease the cash flows of senior citizens that are largely dependent on interest income. The exemption limit on interest income on bank and post office has been raised from ₹10,000 to ₹50,000 a year.
• The deduction available for health insurance premium and medical expenditure has been raised from ₹30,000 to ₹50,000.
• Deductions for medical expenditure on certain critical illness have been hiked to ₹1 lakh for all senior citizens, up from the prevailing levels of ₹60,000 for senior citizens and ₹80,000 for very senior citizens.
• While these concessions are worth ₹4,000 crore, the government also extended the Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana up to March 2020, which assures an 8%  return, and raised the investment cap from ₹7.5 lakh to ₹15 lakh.