In today's circumstances, however, getting people to borrow more is the last thing on the minds of financial service providers. Most of them are reeling under the weight of assets whose prices have declined precipitously because nobody in his right mind wants to buy them.
Rising geopolitical uncertainty, a falling dollar and the growing speculative interest in commodities trading will keep crude prices volatile.
The project is aimed at meeting the manpower requirements of India's rapidly growing economy, which currently faces a huge skill deficit at all levels of the job chain. The mission, which is expected to start functioning in four to five months from now, will be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who will head an "apex committee" with Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia as the vice-chairman.
While the economy has been averaging an annual growth rate of around 8.7 per cent for the last five years, the unorganised manufacturing sector is slowing down.
With the recent issues of ill-treatment of Indian workers in US and Middle East, Indian govt is also faced with the crisis of unorganised labour in India. There are 400 million workers in the unorganised sector in India that are living in subhuman conditions, are being exploited and do not get any financial benefits either. And, they fall beyond India's stringent labour laws. Unorganised Sector Worker's Social Security Bill is riddled with loopholes and yet remains undecided.
To be fair, with the increasing terrorist threats, India's concern may not be unique. The United States, for instance, has always had the reputation of not allowing any email service provider to operate without it being able to break the encrypted code.
Some large companies said the measure would broaden and deepen the equity cult in the country, but feel that a blanket 25 per cent minimum public shareholding norm should not be applied indiscriminately to all companies. The ministry had floated the paper on February 1 and asked for public comments by the month-end. The minimum public shareholding limit now is 10 per cent.
Budget has made provisions for increase in the discretionary powers of the taxmen. It remains to be seen whether this move will affect the taxpayers or help them better.
In recent years, as the number of government economic reports coming out in the weeks and months before the Survey has increased, its utility has diminished as a source of data and as the ministry's assessment of the state of the economy.
Apart from signalling the shape of things to come, the stock markets are seen as an important source of funds for investment - so their health can be critical.
Even as the debate over off-Budget liabilities continues, former finance ministry bureaucrats and leading economists say it's time the government went beyond the targets in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.
Many financial sector reforms suggested by the Percy Mistry Committee may not figure in Budget 2008-09.
The Reserve Bank of India has told parliamentarians that it is concerned over the stock market exposure of various non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) promoted by leading banks in the country.
The new Sebi chairman will have to work hard in institution building. This involves attracting high-quality people (who might often be young by government standards), putting them in a meritocratic workplace with open discussion, and establishing transparency and accountability structures so that Sebi becomes not a one-man shop but a genuine institution that will be a key player in India's GDP growth.
The Central Statistical Organisation, the government agency responsible for keeping track of how the economy is performing, goes through five phases of estimating how much India's GDP amounts to each year.
"This is the result of tighter fiscal discipline imposed by the fiscal responsibility framework ... and an optimistic revenue outlook driven by the buoyancy in revenue collections during the last three years of the 10th Plan," the 11th Plan document points out.
Weights of the fuel group are set to rise in the revised Wholesale Price Index.
The committee on financial inclusion, headed by C Rangarajan, the chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, has recommended that the profits transferred to their reserves by such banks should be exempted from tax till the banks achieve the standard capital adequacy ratio (CAR).
The finance ministry is expected to announce the abolition of tax deducted at source (TDS) on corporate bonds in Budget 2008-09, official sources told Business Standard.
The International Monetary Fund says India will clock growth of 8.4 per cent in the coming year.
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