'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.
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.
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.
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.
Women and children have been given short shrift with these crucial sectors facing substantive budgetary cuts, discovers Rashme Sehgal.
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.
The government had no option but to cut spending to meet its borrowing targets.
The Child Protection Services programme under the Integrated Child Development Services was increased to Rs 1,500 crore from Rs 925 crore.
Rajeev Mehta, chief executive for IT services, believes this is due to a few client-specific issues, saying the overall business environment continues to look good.
The budget-making exercise offers golden opportunities despite challenges, observes Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
While most experts suggest the government loosen its purse strings and not worry about the fiscal deficit in a pandemic impacted year, it will be a tightrope walk for the government to increase spending without going overboard.
The Budget allocation for Ministry of Agriculture and allied activities has grown by 114% since 2010-11
For 2017-18 and 2018-19, investors are better off focusing on the quality of measures announced in the Budget and outside it rather than on the Budget numbers themselves, says T T Ram Mohan.
Pensioners, India Inc may get tax breaks in Budget
'The finance minister in her Budget speech should spell out how exactly she intends to get back to the 7% track, and the hard decisions she intends to take in order to adjust to the realities of a slowing economy until growth momentum returns,' suggests T N Ninan.
If there is no third wave of the pandemic, the fiscal position of the Centre and the states will be much better than budgeted for FY22 and the states may garner Rs 60,000 crore more in tax collections at Rs 8.27 lakh crore this fiscal year than they have budgeted, a report said. The report by SBI Research on Monday bases its optimism on GST collection so far this fiscal, which has been the best ever in spite of the fact that the two months bore the maximum brunt of the second wave -- with April setting a record Rs 1.41 lakh crore and May collection a tad low at Rs 1.03 lakh crore. The report also said overall government finances do not look overstretched as GST collections have continued to maintain pace so far and the additional fiscal impact arising from free vaccination and more food supplies will only be around Rs 28,512 crore.
The government had breached its fiscal deficit target given in the Budget for 2017-18 in November itself, touching 112 per cent of the limit.
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.
Fiscal deficit in first half of FY19 has already reached 95.3 per cent of full-year budget estimates.
Foreign portfolio investors have been net positive since the Union Budget
The final Budget for the fiscal is likely to be tabled in July after formation of the new government.
After the Covid-19 pandemic that derailed the economy since 2019, the Durga Puja festival in West Bengal is back with an estimated 20-30 per cent jump in festive spending. Retail sector is the key contributor to the state's Durga Puja economy which was Rs 32,377 crore in 2019, according to a British Council study conducted for the state government. Retail accounts for 85 per cent of the total puja economy and the rest is shared among pandal making, decoration, illumination, entertainment, advertisement, food & beverage and others.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday pitched for front loading of capital expenditure, saying it is critical for revitalisting the economy post the coronavirus pandemic. During a virtual meeting with senior government officials to discuss the infrastructure roadmap ahead, she also asked ministries to aim to achieve more than their capital expenditure (capex) targets. The Union Budget 2021-22 provided a capital outlay of Rs.5.54 lakh crore, a sharp increase of 34.5 per cent over the Budget Estimate of 2020-21.
The Budget is remarkably coherent.
The Economic Survey 2022-23 (FY23), to be presented a day before Union Budget 2023-24 (FY24), is likely to project India's real gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 6 per cent and 7 per cent for FY24, Business Standard has learnt. The broader theme of the Survey could be on how India has dealt with two years of a global pandemic and the ongoing geopolitical disturbance, the strengths and weaknesses that emerged, and what lessons may be learnt. The much-awaited Survey will be the first one by Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran and his team in the finance ministry's economic division.
Sliding for the fifth straight session, the rupee fell 3 paise to close at a fresh lifetime low of 79.06 against the US dollar on Thursday amid a strong greenback overseas and unrelenting foreign fund outflows. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 78.92 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 78.90 and a low of 79.07. It finally settled at 79.06, down 3 paise over its previous close of 79.03.
The Union Government's fiscal deficit remained above the annual target for second month in row at the end of August, mainly on account of the impact of lockdown on revenue collections. According to the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), fiscal deficit during April-August was at 109.3 per cent of the annual target estimated in the Budget.
The government on Saturday allocated Rs 2826.92 crore to the sports budget for the next financial year, which is up by a mere Rs 50 crore from the revised estimates of 2019-20. The government gave a substantial hike of Rs 291.42 crore to its flagship Khelo India programme for development of sports at the grassroot and youth level, which meant that most of the other heads got reduced allocation in an Olympic year.
'Interim Budget has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit.'
The government has exhausted only 39 per cent of its fiscal deficit target in the first half of FY24.
Do the actual numbers bear out the claims made by the government or do they suggest something else? asks A K Bhattacharya.
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 Budget numbers presented severely underestimate the magnitude of the unstated fiscal crisis that we went through in 2018-2019, which cannot be conceivably be fully reversed in 2019-2020,' points out Rathin Roy, director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
IThe fiscal deficit target for 2020-2021 was originally set at 3.5 per cent of GDP. But the government's revenues have collapsed and its expenditure burden will only increase over the Budget estimates.' With the government having already planned for an additional borrowing of over Rs 4 trillion, the fiscal deficit for the current year would be much higher than the Budget estimate, notes A K Bhattacharya.
In recent years, excise duty collections had always played truant to the expectations.
The challenge of achieving fiscal deficit targets for the next two years seems daunting.
"The Union Budget represents the aspirations of 130 crore Indians and lays out the path towards India's development. I invite you all to share your ideas and suggestions for this year's Budget on MyGov," the PM said according to a statement posted on his official website on Thursday.
The amount allocated for 2019-20 is 11 per cent higher compared to Rs 55,000 crore allocated for the year 2018-19.
The government also proposed promoting 'one product one district' for better marketing and export of horticulture crops. It also called on states for early implementation of three key central model laws on land leasing, agriculture produce and livestock marketing and contract farming.
