With multitude of announcements in the farming and social sectors, the government was perhaps more constrained to make allocation to the infrastructure sector.

Zero tax on taxable income of up to Rs 5 lakh to provide relief to a big section of the tax-paying population.

As Budgets go, this one has a perfect focus - alleviating rural distress.

Assured cash transfers to small and marginal farmers might become more inclusive, leading to a new form of universal basic income.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in an interaction with journalists after the Budget, says income support can co-exist with subsidies.

Jaitley justified the absence of any major mention of job creation in the Interim Budget saying such budgets are different from the normal budget speeches and are more like a report card and a road map.

In the last four budgets, AI did not find any mention. The government itself has not made noise about artificial intelligence being a focus area in the past four years.

Presenting the Union Budget 2019, Interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said that defence budget has been increased to more than Rs 3 lakh crore for the financial year 2019-20.

Budget 2019 LIVE updates: The Budget 2019 will be the last one presented by Narendra Modi led NDA government before the General Elections due in May.

Catch all the latest update on Union Budget on Lok Sabh TV

At 11 am on February 1  Finance Minster Piyush Goyal will be presenting Union Budget 2019 in Parliament

Recently, the populist announcements like farm loan waivers had dented the state budgets of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The interim budget could give some indication of the government's commitment to fiscal consolidation, which is one of the main sensitivities in the sovereign ratings, Fitch said.