To enable widen the fiscal deficit beyond the permissible limit under the present legislation, the government may have to propose amendment to the FRBM Act in the Finance Bill.
The Finance Ministry said it has followed standard practice and has not violated any Constitutional provision by not showing interest on tax refund as separate expenditure in the Budget.
Going by the number of changes Mr Jaitley's next Budget is likely to see, he will go down in the history of Budget-making as the finance minister who ushered in the largest number of changes in a single Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
Corporate social responsibility rules that kicked in on Friday also set a three year time-limit for any CSR project, among a series of other amendments introduced by the government.
If Nirmala Sitharaman does indeed present a 'never-before' like Budget on February 1, going by her promise, she would create a new benchmark for post-contraction Budgets, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Carrier will use the money to clear dues of oil marketing companies, which had stopped supplies to it, leading to cancellation of flights.
February 6 or 8 likely options; development will be the main theme
The panel may include or seek inputs from former RBI Governor Urjit Patel, former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian, Sajjid Chinoy of the PM-EAC, Rathin Roy, among others.
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.
Facing an acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, the Odisha government on Monday decided to float a global tender for procuring the vaccine to inoculate the states entire population, Chief Secretary S C Mohapatra said.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will take a final call on whether to break the tradition of presenting a separate Rail Budget, by merging it with the General Budget.
The fiscal deficit in current fiscal has been estimated at 3.9%.
This will violate the time-honoured convention that a government elected for a five-year tenure presents only five full Budgets, but the NDA government will no doubt present it as yet another initiative of Mr Modi.
India's services sector activity moderated further in January as new business rose at a noticeably slower rate amid the escalation of the pandemic, reintroduction of restrictions and inflationary pressures, a monthly survey said on Thursday. The seasonally adjusted India Services Business Activity Index fell to 51.5 in January, down from 55.5 in December, pointing to the slowest rate of expansion in the current six-month sequence of growth. For the sixth straight month, the services sector witnessed an expansion in output.
Jaitley was replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on Supplementary Demands for Grants for an additional expenditure of over Rs 12,500 crore (Rs 125 billion).
'The government must provide more funds to enable the armed forces to fight and win tomorrow's wars,' states Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
India has been relatively insulated from the severe headwinds in the West. However, with a third of the global economy expected to slip into recession in calendar year 2023, the impact will strongly be felt on India's exports and trade economy, leading economists said in a panel discussion at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit in Mumbai on Wednesday. The panel comprised former Reserve Bank of India executive director and former Monetary Policy Committee member Mridul Saggar, State Bank of India Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Citibank India Chief Economist Samiran Chakraborty, ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nayar, and IndusInd Bank Chief Economist Gaurav Kapoor. The topic of the panel discussion was No recession in sight: Is India decoupled from developed economies?
In order to provide greater leeway to central government departments and ministries to finalise centrally-funded projects, the Department of Expenditure under the finance ministry has increased the financial limits of projects requiring approval from various cost-approving bodies.
The announcement of a deferral is expected to be part of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's Budget speech on February 29.
The Covid pandemic has left a question mark on how the central government manages its staff.
Stepped up public expenditure must be accompanied by focused policies, advises Vinayak Chatterjee.
It is time for the three finance ministers of the 1990s to reveal the real hero, says T C A Srinavasa-Raghavan.
"How many more lies will be peddled to sustain a sinking dynast? India, certainly deserves better," Jaitley said.
There are 1.9 million employees and 650,000 pensioners in Maharashtra.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) booked massive gains on its foreign currency sales and needed to provide much lesser for its reserves in 2020-21 (FY21), helping it to carve out a significant Rs 99,122-crore dividend for the government, revealed the RBI's annual report for FY21. By doing so, the central bank's risk buffers have reduced to the bare minimum, which may restrict some of RBI's scale of operations, and would likely hamper dividend payout for financial year 2021-22, said analysts. The annual accounts are for nine months ended March 31, 2021 since the RBI changed its accounting year from July-June to April-March from FY21.
After the initial release of funds, the central government follows certain rules and guidelines before awarding the final aid to any state for a natural calamity.
The central bank can directly print money and finance the government, but it should avoid doing so unless there is absolutely no alternative, former RBI governor D Subbarao on Wednesday said while pointing out that India is 'nowhere' near such a scenario. In an interview with PTI, Subbarao suggested that to deal with the second wave of COVID-19 induced slowdown in the economy, the government can consider Covid bonds as an option to raise borrowing, not in addition to budgeted borrowing, but as a part of that.
Following the Supreme Court verdict which clipped the powers of the LG, the bone of contention between the Delhi government and his office continues to be control over the services department.
From the enactment of the capital control Act to the recognition of the BSE as a stock exchange and the infamous Harshad Mehta scam, here are the 18 biggest events for stock markets from 1947 to 1993.
Likely to be merged with Union Budget from FY18
The CoS, headed by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, has also decided to set up a committee overseen by additional secretary, expenditure, Vilasini Ramachandran, and key finance ministry officials who have been asked to work out a financial package.
Nirmala Sitharaman's messaging was clear when she presented a well-balanced Budget with an eye on state elections in nine states followed by a general election next year, observes Ramesh Menon.
The government is trying to promote infrastructure development through PPP projects and has suggested the state should pick projects under this mode in a big way.
The technical report of the NSSO has generated controversy following its observation that as much as 36 per cent units forming part of MCA-21 database, used in computing GDP, could not be either identifiable or traceable in the field.
The infrastructure spending target for 2020-25 was revised because of additional and amended data provided by central ministries, state governments since the release of the summary NIP Report in December 2019 when it was pegged at Rs 100 trillion.
The strategy to achieve the target would be to maximise revenue collections and control expenditure, Chidambaram said, while seeking support of the political parties to deal with economic and financial problems facing the country.
India's economy will do well once vaccination reaches a critical mass as pent up demand, global recovery and easy financial conditions will boost activities, RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Ashima Goyal said on Tuesday.
Bailout packages for fiscally stressed states are in the works, as the government seeks to garner political backing for the key policy reforms it plans to fast-track after the five state elections. A senior finance ministry official involved in the process said a high-level committee under expenditure secretary Sumit Bose had held consultations to identify measures to help West Bengal, Punjab and Kerala.
Government looking at cushioning slowdown due to demonetisation with sops and higher outlay for micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture, and affordable housing.
