Equity-linked savings scheme, PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana are recommended instruments.
Many exemptions make little sense, such as a monthly exemption of Rs 100 for college education and Rs 300 for hostel fees.
Encouraging domestic financial savings through focused measures would help mobilise long term resources for funding infrastructure and economic development.
Arun Jaitley had a tough fiscal hill to climb.
The government should now focus on governance and monitoring the supply side to manage inflation, says M V Subramanian.
Mohandas Pai took part in an hour-long chat on rediff.com
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on "Recapturing India's Growth Momentum" in Washington on Thursday, said that the leading think tank need not launch an initiative to explore how India will vote in 2014, declaring that the Indian polity will vote the Congress back into power.
