The finance minister is ready to present a second financial package. The Centre has ruled out a mega stimulus and will rely on targeted, incremental packages. Industry is clamouring for a bailout, the liquidity upheaval in capital markets is nowhere close to being sorted out, and all budgetary forecasts now stand irrelevant, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
The Centre will release Rs 95,082 crore as tax devolution to the states this month after including one advance instalment to help them push their capital expenditure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. After a meeting with all chief ministers and state finance ministers, Sitharaman said states had said that it would be helpful for them if the tax devolution is front loaded.
At the customary post-Budget media interactions, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her topmost bureaucrats touched upon a number of issues. The minister said the government taxing income from digital virtual assets did not give them legitimacy and that issue was being dealt separately in the planned cryptocurrency Bill. She also expressed confidence that the Budget targets were achievable.
India Inc on Thursday pitched for continuation of reforms while ensuring tax and policy stability in the forthcoming Budget to prop up the economy hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the virtual pre-Budget consultation held with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, industry chambers said that government measures will help firmly entrench the nascent signs of recovery being currently seen in private investment. Capital expenditure by the government through enhanced infrastructure spending should in the meantime continue to support growth, CII president TV Narendran said.
Nationalisation has served its purpose. It's time to move ahead, keeping majority ownership of the government in a few banks to serve the people, argues Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The appointment of new expenditure secretary comes a month-and-a-half ahead of the Budget for 2020-21 to be presented on February 1.
The government must, therefore, legislate to automatically allow non-irrigated agricultural land to be used for industrial purposes, subject only to obtaining environmental clearances.
India must mount nothing short of a war effort to address what is becoming a binding constraint on India's development.
The demand for extension of the GST cess regime among others was made by several state finance ministers at a pre-budget consultation called by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. Besides, many states also demanded raising the share of the Union government in the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). Currently, the central government and state government share in some CSS is 60:40 while in others it is 75:25.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her second Budget a little more than a month from now. Like any other FM, Sitharaman will depend on her team of bureaucrats and advisors to frame and present the Budget.
As part of the ritual, ''halwa'' is prepared in a big ''kadhai'' (large frying pot) and served to the entire staff involved in the Budget making exercise of the ministry. Halwa was served while maintaining COVID protocol with all present in mask and those distributing sweets were wearing gloves.
The Modi PMO is like none other: It is staffed by people who are so low profile that the only dominant personality is the Prime Minister's.
After the government sought Parliament's nod for a second batch of supplementary demand for grants that will cause a hit of Rs 2.99 trillion to the exchequer, doubts suddenly arose about the government's ability to meet the Budget projections of reining in its fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), or Rs 15.06 trillion, for the current financial year. Till now, many were of the opinion that the government would succeed in checking the deficit at a much lower figure than what was given in the Budget Estimates (BE). The government had sought Parliament's approval to spend Rs 3.74 trillion extra, but Rs 74,517.01 crore will be matched by equal savings on other heads.
While the Narendra Modi government has stuck to its stand that pending payment is Rs 12,343 crore, MSMEs calim outstanding amount is Rs 2-3 trillion. Moreover, MSME ministry's SAMADHAN portal has been of little help.
Before considering reducing the freedom of private investors in the derivatives market, we need to check if the maladies in markets elsewhere exist in India, says Susan Thomas.
'It is a package for a new self-reliant India.'
13 eminent economists, including former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and current International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath, in a report have asked the political establishment not to resort to populist tricks.
In fact, no other recent Union Budget has held so much significance for the Indian economy as the one to be presented in about six weeks from now, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Economists have asked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to lower interest rate, rationalise subsidies, remove all cess and surcharge, do away with the retrospective tax amendments and scrap dividend distribution tax to revive investment cycle and promote growth.
The expansion in equity market volumes is driven by retail speculators indulging in heavy trading of complex derivatives that are economically unproductive, say Praveen Chakravarthy and T V Somanathan.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances