Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to strike a fine balance between being fiscally prudent and growth supportive when she presents her fourth straight budget on Tuesday, which is expected to have plans to boost spending to revive investment and create jobs. The Budget for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2022 is likely to raise spending on infrastructure to set the economy on a firmer footing. The stage for the Budget presentation was set by the Economic Survey stating that the government has the fiscal space to do more to support the economy that is forecast to grow at a healthy 8-8.5 per cent growth in the 2022-23 fiscal.
On reforms in pipeline, she said the government is for universal right to minimum wages and wants to remove regional disparity through a national floor wage.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said windfall tax on petroleum products, crude is not ad hoc, but being charged in regular consultation with the industry. Addressing an event organized online, the minister said it is unfair to call windfall tax as ad hoc, because the tax rate and its resetting are done in complete consultations with the industry. "The very idea was implemented after taking the industry into full confidence," she said at a function organised by Elara Capital.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
'The estimates of tax forgone on this item run into hundreds of billions.' 'And there is neither fairness nor rationality to support continuing with this tax holiday for just one class of investors, those who put their money in shares,' says T N Ninan.
She said the grant does not cover the actual cost of vaccine and distribution expenses, which will be made separately as and when the vaccine is available.
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Phnom Penh on Sunday and discussed bilateral ties, the raging Ukraine conflict, energy issues, G20 and the situation in the Indo-Pacific, days ahead of a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden.
It was one of the toughest times in history to announce a budget, says Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprises.
Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ended on a mixed note on Wednesday as the euphoria about the Budget fizzled out, with investors going for profit-taking ahead of the Fed interest rate decision. The 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex climbed 158.18 points or 0.27 per cent to settle at 59,708.08 after it trimmed most of the intra-day gains. During the day, it had zoomed 1,223.54 points or 2 per cent to 60,773.44.
Wang began a two-day trip to Pakistan on Tuesday primarily to attend a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a special guest.
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
Sitharaman also said states will get 41 per cent share of taxes as per the 15th Finance Commission recommendation and the government has accepted the recommendation.
Of the cash outgo, Rs 64,598 crore is for enhanced expenditure on fertiliser subsidy under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 and Rs 20,466 crore for the capital outlay in defence services.
Seven of the meetings will be held in late November or early December at the finance ministry, as is the norm.
The Railway ministry has been allocated budgetary support of Rs 140367.13 crore in the Union Budget on Tuesday - Rs 20,311 crore more than the revised figures of the previous fiscal. Overall, the national transporter is set to get a capital expenditure (CapEx) push of Rs 2.45 lakh crore in the financial year 2022-23, 14 per cent higher than the budgeted capital expenditure of Rs 2.15 lakh crore for the current financial year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for 2022-23 said that India will manufacture 400 new, energy-efficient Vande Bharat trains in the next three years.
7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
She hit out strongly against the "misguided" Congress party for backing "fringe groups" at universities which have shown Maoist or separatist tendencies.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the government has begun an exercise to assess the impact of the pandemic on the economy and likely contraction in GDP, even as she did not rule out the possibility of another stimulus to boost growth.
The officials said the focus of the talks was on 'full and enduring restoration of peace and tranquillity' along the border and also better coordination to ensure avoidance of such incidents in future.
Officials said more Indians in small groups are expected to reach Romania through the border crossing.
'I would want people to have food on their tables and their wages to rise.' 'Will that happen or not is the question that we need to ask and answer.'
In years past, we often approached the Budget expecting to see changes in direct and indirect taxes. Those days are behind us. The Budget of today seeks to expand the economy and keep it at the forefront of technology, observes Harsh Goenka.
'No Budget has so far has addressed the issue of the government's abysmal productivity of capital spending, improving which will be the big game changer. 'But, the government's tight lock on businesses, banks, education, and even essential services like transportation and large parts of infrastructure and healthcare is destroying capital year after year,' points out Debashis Basu.
India Inc is encouraged by a determined Budget.
... He is 11 years younger... makes more money than her...
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
'I'm pitching India for the strengths we offer, including the English language, engineers, doctors, nurses, professionals, innovative talent of startups.'
The Rajya Sabha on Thursday approved a bill to raise the foreign investment limit in the insurance sector to 74 per cent, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying while control will go to foreign companies, the majority of directors and key management persons will be resident Indians who will be covered by law of the land.
The talks took place in a beach resort in Benaulim on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva and discussed a range of issues, including impact of geopolitical situation on global growth.
A large part of this fund would be raised through public offers made to retail customers, he said.
The e-commerce sector is also fraught with redundant taxation laws that need immediate overhaul
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday hailed the Union Budget as an "all-inclusive" document while the Opposition dismissed it as "anti-people" and mere rhetoric lacking the vision for creating jobs and taming inflation.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay offers some unsolicited advice for a government wh,ich came to power, with brute majority and the nation's pragmatic chief money man.
This issue was discussed at the Gyan Sangam addressed by Prime Minister.
'Nirmalaji must consider herself a very lucky finance minister, partly because of the government's response to covid and partly because we as a nation have done very well as an economy, post pandemic.'
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday called for flexibility in the framework that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the process of creating, to help countries manage large capital flows that could put economies at risk as they come out of the global financial crisis.
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.
