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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley takes a protectionist stance in favour of domestic companies, increases customs duty on certain products.
The government on Wednesday said it will raise Rs 72,500 crore through disinvestment of PSUs, including listing of three railway PSUs IRCTC, IRFC and IRCON, and proposed merger and consolidation to create globally competitive public sector units.
If this Budget was not packaged and sold as a Budget for the poor and for farmers, Narendra Modi would have lost the next election.
We have to wait and see whether Jaitley's Budget speech translates into actions and desired outcomes, says T N C Rajagopalan.
Rahul Gandhi said Modi should instil confidence in the employees and voters by withdrawing the proposal.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
The traditional annual speech by President Trump was initially scheduled for this Tuesday but had to be postponed because of the largest government shutdown due to differences between the White House and opposition Democrats on the issue of US-Mexico border wall.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his Budget speech on Monday, announced a new dispute resolution mechanism for such companies who are in confrontation with the taxman's action.
Jaitley said the government proposes to establish a National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions.
While she primed up spending on infrastructure to create jobs and boost economic activity, Sitharaman did not tinker with income tax slabs or tax rates. Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 proposed a massive 35 per cent jump in capital expenditure to Rs 7.5 lakh crore, coupled with rationalisation of customs duty, an extension of time for setting up new manufacturing companies and plans for starting a digital currency and tax crypto assets.
The government is open to providing more capital than that announced in the Budget.
The Union Cabinet has cleared disinvestment of the country's largest insurer LIC and a panel headed by the finance minister will now decide on the quantum of stake dilution, a senior official said on Monday. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had in January appointed actuarial firm Milliman Advisors LLP India to assess the embedded value of LIC ahead of the IPO (initial public offering), which is touted to be the biggest public issue in Indian corporate history. The Budget amendments to the LIC Act has been notified and the actuarial firm is expected to finalise the embedded value of the life insurer. Under the embedded value method, the insurance company's present value of future profit is also included in its present net asset value.
The Budget loosened the reins on public spending to drive growth.
The Child Protection Services programme under the Integrated Child Development Services was increased to Rs 1,500 crore from Rs 925 crore.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the Railway Budget on Friday. In her third Railway Budget speech, Banerjee said atleast one doctor will be available on long distance trains.
Finance minister tries to put house in order before reforms are unveiled in February.
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
Niti Aayog will prepare the next list of central public sector companies for disinvestment in the next few weeks, its vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Thursday and expressed hope that the proposed asset reconstruction and management companies to address banks' bad loan woes will do a good job like the UTI. Days after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget for 2021-22 laying out various measures (including disinvestment proposals) to bolster the pandemic-hit economy, Kumar also emphasised that the Modi government has shown consistent commitment for the welfare of farmers and for the improvement of the agriculture sector. "Now the process has begun... We will complete preparation of the next list in the next few weeks, we have got the marching order," Kumar said about the list of public sector companies for the next round of stake sales.
A proposal in the Union Budget 2022-23 to raise excise duty on dirtier, unblended retail petrol and diesel has met with some resistance from the petroleum ministry. However, finance ministry officials say no such communication arguing against the levy of extra duty on diesel has been received from the oil ministry. Until there are discussions between the two departments, the proposal will not be tweaked in the Finance Bill. The Rs 2 per litre additional excise duty proposed on unblended fuels in the Finance Bill will result in a uniform hike of diesel prices across the country from October 1.
With the farmers' protest against the three new laws and in support of legalising the minimum support price (MSP) going strong, state governments have announced a slew of measures in their annual Budgets to placate farmers. The Centre kicked things off in the Union Budget by assuring farmers that the MSP would continue and coming out with a report card to demonstrate its commitment. However, these efforts don't seem to have yielded tangible results. In their respective Budgets, states chose to go a step further by announcing a variety of measures.
Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the Railway Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament on Friday.
Take a look at government subsidies and their growth as a percentage of GDP over this period.
The Budget announcement of taxing 'virtual digital assets' or crypto currencies will help the income-tax department measure the "depth" of this trade in the country, know the investors and the nature of their investments and it does not "attach any legality" to these transactions, Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman J B Mohapatra said.
The government has put off by one month the levy of an additional Rs 2 per litre excise duty on petrol and diesel that is not doped with ethanol and bio-diesel in a bid to give the industry more time to implement the measure.
Budget announcements will come right before five states, with population of around 250 million, go to polls.
"Religious festivals seem to have become occasions to intimidate and bully others -- a far cry from when they were occasions for joy and celebration. Instead, there is intimidation and discrimination only on account of their religion, food, caste, gender or language," Gandhi said.
Jaitley said a 10 per cent tax long on capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh made from the sale of shares has been introduced but those made till Janaury 31 would be grandfathered. A 10 per cent tax on distributed income by equity oriented mutual funds has also been proposed in the budget.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
Despite a temporary relief, foreign investors still see the sword of double-taxation hanging above their hard earned returns.
Mihir S Sharma outlines why this year's Union Budget does not respond to the needs of India's economy, or attempt to frame the economy's future.
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
Under the proposed mechanism, the finance ministry has said banks will notify customers when someone tries to deposit money in their accounts, a government official said.
Sources in the know said the government would initiate talks with businesses, including Tatas, shortly for divesting its stake in the national carrier.
The govt hiked defence budget by 7.81 per cent over last year's Rs 2.74 lakh crore.
Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian's interview.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday criticized the Union Budget 2012-13 saying it has "dampened" economic sentiments as almost all services have been brought under tax ambit.
The deduction is in case of senior citizen is Rs 60,000.
Replying to the debate in Lok Sabha on Motion of Thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the Parliament, Modi said the Congress' 'arrogance' has not gone away despite multiple electoral defeats and its 'misdeeds' seem to indicate that it has made up its mind not to come to power for the next 100 years.
The fiscal deficit in current fiscal has been estimated at 3.9%.
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