As part of its fiscal tightening measures, the finance ministry has asked all government departments not to seek any increase in their allocations for 2009-10 over and above what has already been provided for in the Interim Budget presented on February 16.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday expressed confidence that the NDA will get more than 400 seats and the BJP will win at least 370 seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
The gross domestic savings rate increased from 29.8 per cent in 2003-04 to 30.7 per cent in 2007-08. The tax to GDP ratio increased from 9.2 per cent 2003-04 to 4.5 per cent 2007-08, Pranab Mukherjee said.
Jaitley, who was the finance minister before a medical procedure led to the charge being temporarily taken away from him, missed presenting the sixth and final Budget of the Narendra Modi government before the general elections. In his absence, the charge of the ministry was given to Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.
The truth about the deficit is that it is designed to serve political objectives, not economic ones.
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
While the April-February deficit is pegged at 5.3 per cent of GDP, the final print may be a tad lower due to revenue push and expenditure cuts seen in March, the last month of 2013-14 fiscal year, it said.
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:
The worst of recession could coincide with the run-up to the elections.
'Rahul Gandhi should have prevented Nitish Kumar from going.' 'He must pacify Mamata Banerjee if he has a cause of Mohabbat Ki Dukaan.' 'He should bring this Mohabbat Ki Dukaan on the political canvas.'
Consumer goods manufacturers, expecting to see a revival of demand from the nearly Rs 16,500 crore Pay Commission arrears for government employees, are likely to be disappointed.
A number of new IITs started functioning in 2008-09, the minister said, adding that two more IITs in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will start functioning in 2009-10.
Presenting the Interim Budget in Lok Sabha, the minister said the enactment of the Act by the Centre and many states has 'bridged a critical gap in the public decision-making process and ushered in greater accountability of public servants.'
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The estimated market borrowing by these two companies during current fiscal were pegged at Rs 13,800 crore (Rs 138 billion) from markets, as per the interim Railway Budget for 2014-15 tabled in February.
Has Vijay Shekhar Sharma given up on the bank? For now, he seems to be on a save-OCL mission. The bank will face its logical end, observes Tamal Bandopadhyay.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh chose a newly refurbished hall in North Block to defend his announcements in a post-interim Budget interview.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said that government has taken a conscious and bold decision to enhance the Gross Budgetary Support for the Annual Plan 2009-10 by Rs.40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) over the Interim Budget for 2009-10.
Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao said on Friday that another stimulus package could help the economy in the short-term but a sustainable recovery required the government to return to fiscal consolidation.
While festive season spends by consumers did contribute to the uptick seen in Q3, experts said greater aggression displayed by retailers to corner a larger share of the shopper's wallet also worked.
"Jobs must be protected even if it means some reduction in compensation at various levels," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at International Labour Conference in New Delhi.
The extension of interest subsidy scheme by another six months for loans taken by exporters in labour-intensive sectors was the only fiscal stimulus measure announced in the Interim Budget for 2009-10.
Finance Secretary Arun Ramanathan said the government was closely watching the trickle-down effect of the first two stimulus packages and will respond to the evolving situation.
Pranab Mukherjee in the Interim Budget for 2009-10 announced that the government has given in-principle or final approval 50 infrastructure projects worth Rs 67,700 crore (Rs 677 billion).
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has launched many new schemes to provide steady monetary assistance to weak and downtrodden people in the society.
The praise for peasants, most of whom are subsistence farmers, comes ahead of general elections due in a few months. The minister presented statistics to hard-sell the government's initiatives to prop up the agriculture sector and improve the conditions of roughly about 60 per cent of the country's population depending upon it.
India's foreign direct investment inflow between April and November 2008 was $23.3 billion, a growth of 45 per cent compared with that during the same period in 2007, said union Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is holding additional charge of the finance portfolio while presenting the Interim Budget for 2009-10 on Monday in parliament.
The government has pegged fiscal deficit at 5.5 per cent of gross domestic product for the next financial year, against the revised figure of 6 per cent in the current financial year. The fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal was 2.5 per cent. However, fiscal measures initiated in the wake of the global economic downturn and reduction in revenue collection have impacted resource mobilisation resulting in widening of deficit.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Friday left freight rates unchanged in his interim budget to keep traffic from shifting to road transport that has become cheaper following cut in diesel prices.
GST will create a single, unified Indian market
Stock market expert Rajan Malik offers some valuable tips.
Revival hopes of the diamond industry have been dashed as gems and jewellery manufacturers feel that little help has been provided to them in the Interim Budget for 2009-10.
Troubles for the textile industry, which has been grappling with financial blood-letting both in international and home markets, are likely to deepen further. While there are fears of half-a-million more job losses, exports from the sector are likely to take a hit of about Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion), according to industry estimates.
The National Investigation Agency, set up in the wake of audacious strikes in Mumbai, has been allocated Rs 10 crore for 2009-10.
He said most of the states where farmers were committing suicide were being run by Congress or its United Progressive Alliance constituents. "We (NDA government) had left the country in a healthy economic state. Now things are bad," he alleged.
The corpus of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), which is the main instrument of the government to channelise bank funds for financing rural infrastructure, has been increased from Rs 5,500 crore (Rs 55 billion) in 2003-04 to Rs 14,000 crore (Rs 140 billion) for the year 2008-09 ensuring greater availability of funds for its activities.
