The final Budget for the fiscal is likely to be tabled in July after formation of the new government.
Pensioners, India Inc may get tax breaks in 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.
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.
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
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.
You don't prep for 2028 but for 2040, or even 2044. Sustained sporting excellence is based on mass support, grassroots development, and funding - and it is this trifecta India needs to work on, systematically, asserts Prem Panicker.
Foreign portfolio investors have been net positive since the Union Budget
The Reserve Bank's growth projection for next financial year is lower than 8-8.5 per cent projected by the finance ministry in the recent Economic Survey which was tabled in Parliament on January 31. Unveiling the bi-monthly policy, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said, "Recovery in domestic economic activity is yet to be broad-based, as private consumption and contact-intensive services remain below pre-pandemic levels."
"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.
Business success often involves a combination of planning, implementation, and continuous learning, says rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
HDFC was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, climbing nearly 4 per cent, followed by PowerGrid, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finserv. NSE Nifty surged 234.75 points to 17,401.65.
'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.
'China's opaque defence allocation processes are shrouded in mystery and have triggered security dilemmas among its neighbours and others,' notes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
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.
The Budget is remarkably coherent.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
Maharashtra is the BRS' first target.
The challenge of achieving fiscal deficit targets for the next two years seems daunting.
If the government cuts wasteful expenditure as it is trying now, the deficit would at most fall to 8 per cent, not less than that.
In recent years, excise duty collections had always played truant to the expectations.
Hindustan Unilever's Q3FY24 performance was lacklustre, with both sales and operating profit barely moving from the year-ago period due to price cuts and higher advertising costs. Besides weak demand, the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) major is facing increased competitive pressures, particularly from regional players, which, coupled with a slow recovery in rural markets, could put revenues under pressure going forward. Margins are expected to remain range-bound as benefits from falling raw material costs are expected to be neutralised by rising promotional budgets.
Actor Poonam Pandey is not being considered as the brand ambassador of the government's national campaign to spread awareness on cervical cancer, Union health ministry officials said on Wednesday.
'This government has always been fiscally conservative. It never resorted to fiscal profligacy.'
As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
Anticipating healthier economic growth, the Railways has targeted a record Rs 1.6 lakh crore in revenue for the next financial year, while no increase has been proposed in passenger fares and freight rates.
In absolute terms, revenue receipts stood at Rs 9.07 lakh crore at the end of October. For the entire 2019-20, the revenue receipts have been pegged at Rs 19.62 lakh crore.
'I do not believe that you would have a booming economy when you go into elections if you had a budget which did not answer the fiscal deficit concerns.'
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
The government's food subsidy in the ongoing fiscal year is expected to be a little less than Rs 4 trillion.
With the last quarter of 2023-24 (FY24) expected to have been soft owing to lower discretionary spend and macro uncertainty, many are hoping FY25 will be a year of recovery for the information-technology (IT) industry. The fourth quarter, January-March, is considered soft, and will continue to see the headwinds the sector has been facing. And the sector has entered the new financial year on a weak footing. Analysts are expecting Tier-I firms to report sequential growth of -1 per cent to 1.5 per cent and midcap players' growth may range between 0.7 per cent and 4 per cent.
Several questions arise on the appropriateness of the measure in the already strained fiscal scenario, says M Govinda Rao.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Friday presented a populist interim Railway Budget in Parliament on Friday. Following is the entire speech of the railway minister:
This will encompass the sale of Air India, a number of other privatisation initiatives, mergers, initial public offerings, the Centre's two exchange-traded funds, buybacks and offers-for-sale, and even monetisation of land assets.
The Union Budget for 2017 is likely to be presented on February 1. An approval for merging the Railway Budget with the General Budget was accorded by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday.
Allocation of portfolios would be the immediate vexatious issue for the party, with supporters of Virbhadra Singh already feeling sidelined after the elevation of the late chief minister's professed rival Sukhu.
There was no law that prevented the government from presenting a sixth full Budget, or something similar to it.
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