Banking on increased freight haul and earnings from upper class travellers, Indian Railways has projected a gross earning of Rs 43,445 crore (Rs 434.45 billion) in 2003-04.
The scarcity of resources is particularly evident in the case of Rajasthan compared to many other states.
House economists at the nation's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) have urged the government to budget for nursing the pandemic-ravaged economy and not to focus too much on fiscal consolidation as there is a need for more stabilisation measures to sustain the fledgling recovery. And one of the best way to begin the new fiscal is to complete the share sale of LIC this fiscal. This can go a long way in repairing the overstretched balance sheet which in turn will bring down fiscal deficit to a much lower 6.3 per cent in FY23 as the public coffers will be left with a cash surplus of at least Rs 3 lakh crore to begin the new fiscal, SBI chief economist Soumya Kanti Ghosh said in a pre-Budget note on Wednesday.
Can Jaitley's team hope to garner 17% more on personal income tax?
Sitharaman also said that the government's capital expenditure was on track and Budget estimates would be met.
Neither films were rejected by the audience, something that has happened with so many recent, mid-budget films.
Union finance secretary T V Somanathan recently said the Centre had saved Rs 10,000 crore in FY22 on interest payments after adopting new accounting mechanisms for central government agencies and centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) for state governments. Speaking at an event, Somanathan said due to these, there was an unspent balance of Rs 1.2 trillion with state agencies from CSS as on March 31, 2022. This means this amount will be reduced from the Centre's borrowing for now and it can be considered a short-term saving for the exchequer.
The direct tax collections are likely to fall short of the revised Budget target by Rs 650 billion and, in fact, were Rs 150 billion lower than the original estimate for the fiscal
India on Monday set aside over Rs 7,100 crore in its budget for 2021-22 as development assistance for countries in its neighbourhood as well as in Africa and Latin America, with Bhutan getting the maximum allocation of Rs 3,004 crore while Rs 100 crore will be given to Chabahar port project in Iran.
Much of the Q3 data will simply not be available for the CSO to factor in its calculation.
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.
This is not an election Budget in the sense that I might target the voter in the coming elections. But if you look beyond this round of state elections, and tilt the periscope to graze at the more distant horizon, see how the Narendra Modi government wishes things looking by the summer of 2024, observes Shekhar Gupta.
India's gross tax revenue, comprising both direct and indirect taxes between April and July, reported a growth rate of merely 2.8 per cent to Rs 8.9 trillion compared to the same period a year ago, as shown by government data on Thursday. This growth was dampened by direct tax figures, offsetting the healthy growth in goods and services tax collections and Customs duties. While net tax revenue contracted by 12.6 per cent to Rs 5.8 trillion up to July, accounting for 25 per cent of the Rs 23.3 trillion full-year target, this could be attributed to the increased tax devolution to states during the period.
Excluding the pension outgo, the allocation in the Union Budget for the armed forces stands at Rs 3.62 lakh crore.
The situation raises concerns about whether the promised freebies will once again push the state into a revenue deficit.
There are several welcome standalone reforms, but these do not add up to a coherent strategy to achieve a $5 trillion economy or secure Aatmanirbharta, observes Rathin Roy.
The government had last fiscal exceeded the direct tax collection target set in the Budget.
A combination of factors, including heavy investments in US Treasury bonds and dollar sales at a healthy profit, facilitated the Indian central bank in transferring a record surplus of Rs 2.11 trillion to the government for 2023-24 (FY24). The RBI's dollar purchases increased in FY24, supported by robust capital inflows endorsing the economy's health.
Securing the GDP estimates a month in advance would be a challenge and the government should take the Central Statistics Office on board before embarking on the new schedule for Budget presentation
The deficit stood over Rs 8 trillion in the first seven months of the current financial year. Non-tax revenues, comprising transfers from the RBI and dividends of the public sector units, shored up the Centre's revenues.
CAG recommended fixing a definite time frame for rolling out simplified GST return forms.
But it is disappointing to note that Sitharaman's third Union Budget continues to promote a few problematic ideas, observes A K Bhattacharya.
The economy may grow by around 7 per cent this financial year as estimated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), say economists with various organisations. The first advance estimates for 2023-24 will be released on Friday by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), an exercise done for calculating ratios such as the fiscal deficit. The interim Budget will be presented on February 1.
While presenting her 2021-22 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set a fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) against the 2020-21 Revised Estimate of 9.5 per cent. The fiscal correction in the upcoming 2022-23 Union Budget is unlikely to be that steep. Even as discussions among top Budget-makers are ongoing, the fiscal deficit target for 2022-23 may likely be in the range of 6.5-6.8 per cent.
A senior official at the ministry said: "Our revenue earnings have been better than the 7 per cent growth we had estimated. Revenue from freight traffic has registered a strong growth rate. If the trend persists, we are likely to earn more than the revenues estimated earlier this year."
There are various estimates of India's debt to GDP ratio, but the consensus is that that it would be over 80 per cent at the end of the current fiscal year.
Most brokerages are betting that the new government will shift to a policy focussing on boosting rural incomes and consumption since that has clearly been a pain point.
More than half of the total subsidy provisioning, amounting to 54 per cent, is going towards food subsidy, which is estimated at Rs 184,220 crore for 2019-20 - a 7.5 per cent increase over the revised estimates for 2018-19.
'Even before the outbreak of the flu, it had become clear that the tax revenue numbers for 2019-2020 were overestimated,' observes A K Bhattacharya.
The government wants new domestic companies to set up their manufacturing units fast and hence the concessional tax rate of 15 per cent has been extended by a year till March 2024, revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Friday. Stating that direct and indirect tax collections are going up and have good buoyancy, Bajaj said it means that the corporate sector is also doing well, and India's tax to GDP ratio could be "highest ever" in the current year. The Budget 2022-23 presented on February 1 has proposed that the concessional 15 per cent corporate tax rate would be available for one more year till March 2024 for newly incorporated manufacturing units.
There appears to be a growing perception among the political class that faster growth will not create jobs fast enough and, therefore, welfare spending needs to be drastically increased, says T T Ram Mohan.
During financial year 2011-12, MTNL was able to use only 14.66 per cent of the Budget estimate, while BSNL reported a better performance, according to a report by the standing committee on information technology.
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.
"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.
Women and children have been given short shrift with these crucial sectors facing substantive budgetary cuts, discovers Rashme Sehgal.
'We need to put aside our anxieties about the Budget for now and possibly for long, and carry on as best as we can,' advises Shreekant Sambrani.
It is possible that the final Budget architecture may be at variance with the comments.
The increase in India's military spending was "mainly a result of growing personnel and operations costs" which made up almost 80 percent of the total military budget in 2023, the SIPRI report claimed.
The Child Protection Services programme under the Integrated Child Development Services was increased to Rs 1,500 crore from Rs 925 crore.
The budget-making exercise offers golden opportunities despite challenges, observes Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
