Budget has already bombed at the box office and passing it without a revisit will be a mockery of the exercise though any modification may be short lived and perfunctory, observes V Ranganathan.
While indirect taxes collections have exceeded revised estimates (RE) by Rs 9,885 crore, direct tax realisations fell short by Rs 4,000 crore over the RE.
At a combined level, the fiscal deficit of the Centre and states together will come at 12.1 per cent, with the states contributing 4.5 per cent.
'When the government wants to sell these assets, even if one set of assets gets caught in any quagmire, the whole process will fail.' 'The entire world is watching us.'
The rise in the fiscal deficit, which is a reflection of the government's borrowing, was mainly on account of subdued tax collection. The revenue deficit also rose to 3.27 per cent, up from the revised estimate of 2.4 per cent of the GDP.
While Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is aiming for a return to the path of fiscal prudence, various departments of the central government appear to be out of sync.
The amount allocated for 2019-20 is 11 per cent higher compared to Rs 55,000 crore allocated for the year 2018-19.
Petrol price can go down to Rs 75 a litre across the country if brought under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), but there is a lack of political will, which is keeping Indian oil product prices at one of the highest in the world, economists at SBI said on Thursday.
The challenge of achieving fiscal deficit targets for the next two years seems daunting.
This is the first "Green budget" of the government for effective containment of pollution in the city, the deputy chief minister said in the budget session of the assembly in the presence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The Budget estimate of fiscal deficit for the next financial year has been underestimated by nearly 0.9 percentage point of Gross Domestic Product, or about Rs 51,000 crore. This is because the estimates for revenue collections in the Interim Budget for 2009-10 do not reflect the full impact of the duty concessions announced by the government since December 2008. The Budget estimate for fiscal deficit in 2009-10 put it at 5.5 per cent of GDP.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the government has come out with open and transparent Budget and has not made any attempt to hide anything under the carpet.
The idea is to get the budget passed by Parliament along with Appropriations Bill and the Finance Bill by the end of March as this would ensure implementation of the Budget proposals from April 1.
India's macroeconomic situation is improving fast and the country's GDP growth will turn positive in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year, eminent economist Ashima Goyal said on Sunday. Goyal in an interview to PTI said the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual unlocks announced by the government have helped in avoiding multiple COVID-19 peaks. The growth estimates by different agencies are being continuously revised, she said.
"At the end of the year, we will do better than the budget estimates," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters when asked about sharp rise in fiscal deficit in April-May as per the figures released by the Comptroller General of Accounts on Monday. The fiscal deficit for two months touched Rs 73,201 crore (Rs 732.01 billion), 54.9 per cent of estimated fiscal deficit of Rs 1,33,287 crore (Rs 1,332.87 billion) for the fiscal, mainly on account of rising oil import bill.
Against FY17 target of Rs 56,500 cr, Centre plans to fetch around Rs 6,400 cr in the first half.
Fitch said COVID-19 is still in India and it is very likely that the government will have to spend a bit more on fiscal measures to support the economy.
The fiscal deficit touched 61.2 per cent of full year Budget Estimates or over Rs 3.24 lakh crore in end July.
Forget about interim Budgets, one cannot easily recall even a full Budget of any government in recent times having rolled out benefits of this order to such a large number of people, says A K Bhattacharya.
During the pre-budget consultation with Union finance minister, some states made a case for fiscal expansion by boosting consumption to tide over the sluggishness in the economy.
During April-October 20 period, the tax department has made refunds to the tune of Rs 80,850 crore.
On the basis of Budget projections, the Centre needs Rs 7.3 trillion revenue during December-March and its expenditure must be limited to Rs 6.7 trillion.
The 'sex scandal' allegedly involving Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and former Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi rocked the Karnataka Assembly again on Tuesday, with the Opposition Congress protesting in the well of the house, demanding an inquiry monitored by the Chief Justice of the high court.
The immediate revenue loss could worsen the Centre's fiscal deficit, from the budgeted 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3.7 per cent of GDP -- a massive 40-basis-point increase. It was stabilised at 3.4 per cent since 2016-17, report Abhishek Waghmare and Dilasha Seth.
Most families had high value currency notes and they used it for making payments during the pre-demonetisation era.
The government has spent a little less than one-third of the Budget estimate of capital expenditure, it can still spend about Rs 20,000 crore this year without disturbing its fiscal deficit target.
The additional outgo to combat the impact of COVID-19 will significantly erode the fiscal consolidation achieved by the state governments in the past three years, an RBI report said on Tuesday. In its study of the state budgets of 2020-21, the RBI report which has dwelled on the theme 'COVID-19 and its Spatial Dimensions in India', said that Gross Fiscal Deficit (GFD) of the states would spiral during the current fiscal.
To enable widen the fiscal deficit beyond the permissible limit under the present legislation, the government may have to propose amendment to the FRBM Act in the Finance Bill.
For first time in 8 yrs, stake sale proceeds could exceed Budget Estimates. ONGC's acquisition of HPCL alone could get the exchequer more than Rs 30,000 crore.
In the Sensex pack, Vedanta took the biggest hit (5.55 per cent), followed by Tata Motors, SBI, Yes Bank, Bharti Airtel and Infosys, which lost up to 4.50 per cent.
A cut in government spending would come at the cost of growth.
The bulk of states' revenue comes from the devolution from the Centre's divisible tax pool, GST, VAT on petroleum, and excise duty on alcohol.
Without accounting for refunds, however, the collection contracted 5.4 per cent, indicating muted economic activity as the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent curbs paralysed most sectors.
There are doubts about the meeting of indirect tax collection target for the current fiscal as there is slowdown in the economy.
The cost of not vaccinating the entire population quickly will be far higher than bearing the entire cost of vaccination, points out Prosenjit Datta.
The National Council of Applied Economic Research also says that the fiscal deficit will overshoot budget target to touch 4.7 per cent of GDP in 2004-05.
Scrapping Plan and non-Plan classifications necessitates the change
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