The Lower House of Parliament took up the Demands for Grants and Appropriation Bills after two adjournments as the ruling and Opposition MPs engaged in a matching duet over demands for an apology by Rahul Gandhi and the Adani issue.
As per practice a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in the election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government.
To corner the Manmohan Singh government in the Budget Session of Parliament, a united opposition today demanded a debate on price rise on February 23, before the Railway Budget and the Union Budget are placed in the Lok Sabha.
The new board will have a leaner structure on functional lines headed by the chairman and four members - covering infrastructure, operations and business development, rolling stock, and finance.
The stock market will most likely see bullish trends this week in the run up to Union Budget as investors pin hopes on strong reform measures to rev up the economy, say experts.
Reeling under a series of derailments, the Budget is likely to announce creation of a separate safety fund of about Rs 1 lakh crore over the next five years.
Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the Railway Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament on Friday.
'Are all roads in India privatised? Are governments not playing a role in airports or ports? If they (private players) want to set up lines for a specific requirement, I see no reason to object. It will expand the opportunity and passengers will also benefit.'
'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.
'I think governments -- whether this one or the ones earlier -- have not understood the strength of the Indian Railways... that it can easily add 2.5 per cent to GDP.'
The move can help mop up about Rs 1.2 lakh every day for the purpose.
'Spend, but create assets, spend but make sure that people benefit from it.' 'This has been a beautiful guiding principle. And I think as a finance minister I owe so much to the prime minister for keeping this path clear before us.'
There's a 13 per cent increase over last year, in an effort to put its flagging revenues back on track.
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.
The Annual Plan for Railway for 2012-13 is put at highest ever Rs 60,100 crore (Rs 601 billion).
The Budget session of Parliament started Monday with the President's address.
Union Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Wednesday announced a marginal hike in passenger fares.
The words that appeared more often in the speech included tax, income, lakh and crore.
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
The Rajya Sabha approved 15 legislations during the session while the Lok Sabha passed 23 bills, including the GST bills.
India is only on the starting block.
Dinesh Trivedi continued to be Railway Minister on Thursday but only just with the United Progressive Alliance leadership appearing to have buckled under the Trinamool Congress demand to sack him, an action that has been temporarily delayed by the Union Budget to be presented on Friday.
After Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented his fifth straight budget in the Lok Sabha, Bharatiya Janata Party members and ministers from the Cabinet reacted positively to the Budget. Here are some of the reactions.
'We need to put aside our anxieties about the Budget for now and possibly for long, and carry on as best as we can,' advises Shreekant Sambrani.
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.
Slamming the Union budget as 'insipid' and lacking in stimulus for growth, the Congress on Saturday said it does not address the main issue of unemployment and describes the mindset of the government.
Accusing the Centre of setting a new trend of playing "dirty politics" for votes through the budget, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said the allocation of more funds to poll-bound states is a kind of "bribery".
This is the Upper House's third best productive session in the last 14 sessions since the Monsoon Session (243rd Session) of 2017, the Rajya Sabha officials said.
The 30-share Sensex ended down 261 points at 28,747 and the 50-share Nifty ended down 83 points at 8,684.
Budget planners for now have been told to prepare with the assumption that GST will apply from April 1.
The 30-share barometer started higher, but lost its way soon after the railway budget.
Mixing humour with political resolve, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday used the flagging-off ceremony of the first train to Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Katra to subtly but clearly articulate his government's demand for the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
Besides advancing the presentation of the Budget to perhaps the first week of January, , there are four new initiatives that could be rolled out from the next Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
These could include strengthening the public-private partnership (PPP) dispute resolution mechanism, uniform PPP institutional framework, easier terms for infrastructure companies accessing bond markets, and tax sops, Business Standard has learnt. Investment in infrastructure projects with high multiplier effect has been the Centre's main plank to revive the economy, create employment and boost consumption.
The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices have performed better than the front-liners
Also on the anvil is abolition of distinction between Plan and non-Plan expenditure and replacing it with capital and revenue expenditure
Improvement in passenger amenities and better interiors would also figure in the budgetary proposals.
Against a turbulent and uncertain background, Budget 2017-18 hewed a steady, forward-looking course, says Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the government.
The idea behind advancing the Budget date is to ensure that the Finance Bill is passed before the start of the financial year, on April 1, so that all central government departments get their full allocations to work with right from the first day
The Railway Budget will be presented on February 25 while the Union Budget will be presented on February 29.
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