Unveiling far reaching fiscal reforms to improve tax mop up and wipe out revenue deficit by 2009, the Kelkar panel on Friday proposed a single countrywide goods and services tax, removal of tax exemptions and raising income tax slab to Rs 100,000.
The real requirement for the finance minister's explanatory speech is to explain the measures taken in the Budget to influence inflation and growth not just through the announcement of a deficit goal, but more broadly through the impact on money supply, consumer demand, foreign trade and investment, explains Nitin Desai.
India's fiscal deficit trends are a bit like an alcoholic trying, unsuccessfully, to reform. Virtue does not last for too long, says Shankar Acharya.
RBI's latest rate cut will bring down home, car loan's EMI.
FinCom prescribes scrapping of effective revenue deficit.
The Budget has to provide for capex on roads, railways, defence and other infrastructure sectors.
Research and development (R&D) spending by BSE 100 companies has grown steadily, rising from 0.89 per cent of revenue in FY20 to 1.32 per cent in FY24, averaging around 1 per cent over the period in-between, according to data compiled from Bloomberg and company annual reports. Also, these companies more than doubled their R&D spending in absolute terms over these five years: From Rs 25,041 crore to Rs 63,072 crore. While this reflects a prioritisation of innovation, corporate R&D investment remains relatively conservative.
In 2012-13, the Centre managed to cut fiscal deficit to 4.9% of GDP, lower than the Budget revised estimates of 5.2%
'If some measures are implemented quickly, they can help revive growth.'
The new government that presents the full Budget for 2024-2025 in July should be ready to restructure the way divestment is managed and implemented, proposes A K Bhattacharya.
We should work in unison to boost growth: FM
Finance minister tries to put house in order before reforms are unveiled in February.
Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said China imports a lot of components, parts, assembles and integrates and then exports them.
'The prime minister's comment on 'revdi culture' was welcome. But I am disappointed he did not follow up on that.' 'All political parties, including the BJP, have been guilty of this.' 'Now, Modi's guarantees, the Congress's 'nyay' path and both ruling and Opposition parties are vying with each other for freebies in my home state Andhra Pradesh.'
'The private sector believes that some enablers in labour-intensive sectors like apparel, toys, tourism, and media retail, can unlock a lot of jobs.'
Senior bureaucrats say the government has planned a 'feel-good' Budget after the 'pain' of demonetisation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget on February 1. While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Household savings have been hit due to increased spending on health care. Consumption has still not reached pre-pandemic levels.
If the Centre and states are keen on spending more to meet the COVID-19 challenges in the coming year, they must bear in mind the need to raise more resources through taxes and non-tax revenues, suggests A K Bhattacharya.
Economic growth depends a lot on what FM announces in the upcoming Union Budget.
They pointed out that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman relies a lot on divestments, where the government under-performed in FY2019-20, to achieve the 3.8 per cent fiscal deficit target.
Amid a debate on the freebies, the Election Commission on Tuesday proposed amending the model code to ask political parties to provide authentic information to voters on the financial viability of their poll promises.
The government on Friday sought Parliament's nod for an additional Rs 54,000-crore spending mainly to meet its obligation towards GST compensation to states and defence-related expenditure. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur presented the second and final batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha.
India's rank in the World Bank's ease of doing business index cannot get better unless more attention is paid to bringing about procedural reforms in the way states run their governments and provide various approvals for trade and industry, says A K Bhattacharya.
Expressing his satisfaction over the government's move to slash fiscal deficit target, Das said it will help improve investment by the private sector as crowding out impact will be less.
However, independent economists are not as gung-ho as the finance ministry over the likelihood of deficit target being met this time around, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
Among other things, the agenda is likely to focus on increasing private investment, employment generation and giving relief to the farm sector
He did not believe in any fiscal puritanism. In 2012, when it was almost certain that the government will breach the 2012-13 fiscal deficit target, he wrote that in abnormal times, abnormal measures are required to get back to normalcy.
China on Friday hiked its defence budget to $209 billion, maintaining a single-digit growth for the sixth consecutive year with a 6.8 per cent increase in 2021.
In fact, no other recent Union Budget has held so much significance for the Indian economy as the one to be presented in about six weeks from now, notes A K Bhattacharya.
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.
An interview with Amit Mitra, the finance minister of West Bengal.
Credit rating agencies have been raising red flag over high debt to GDP ratio of India.
The review will not only present data, trends but also list out the achievements of the Narendra Modi government
'They have started becoming an important player, but not at the same level as they were in the earlier part of the decade.'
The Budget decides to take the lead in revving up infrastructure.
This move will enable it to incur higher-than-mandated borrowing, and possibly spending, till the 2024 Lok Sabha election cycle.
If providing a stimulus to growth is the objective now, that would be best served by moving rates as quickly as possible to the bottom.
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