The United States has offered to cut its agricultural subsidies by 60 per cent over a period of next five years as demanded by the G-20 developing nations and Britain in its bid to revive the Doha round of trade talks.
Subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers is estimated at Rs 1,79,554 crore.
Critics call fiscal deficit projections ambitious; government to meet Opposition, chief ministers to discuss issues after Budget session
Under the 'educational loan scheme' of Indian Bank's Association, "the government is considering providing interest subsidy on the loans taken by students belonging to non-creamy layer to ensure that nobody is denied professional education," minister of state for human resource development D Purandeswari said in a written reply. Her reply came in response to apprehensions raised in the House about the exorbitant fees being charged by private institutes.
As Chandigarh braces for a fierce contest between Congress candidate Manish Tewari and the BJP's Sanjay Tandon, its industry leaders harbour a fervent wish: Replicate the success of the National Capital Region model in this Union Territory.
In a pre-Budget memorandum, the ministry has submitted to the finance ministry that the industry may not accept bonds this fiscal. Nevertheless, the ministry's latest position seems to be in sync with the demand of the fertiliser industry that has persistently maintained that the securities are mostly trading in discount, affecting the balance sheet of companies.
Despite all the noise around India's chance to leverage the China-plus one strategy, India's share of global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows fell from 3.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2022 to 2.19 per cent in the same period in 2023, according to OECD data. The sharp drop of 54 per cent is much steeper than the overall global FDI inflow decline of 26 per cent in the first nine months. FDI inflows to China have fallen dramatically from a share of 12.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2022 to only 1.7 per cent in the same period in 2023.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Fertiliser ministry officials on Monday briefed the new minister Ram Vilas Paswan about the pending decision on increasing subsidy on phosphatic fertilisers by upto Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) to keep a check on domestic prices.
The ministry was expecting savings this year to be around Rs 20,000 crore.
"We are of the opinion that the G8 countries should do away with subsidies to their farmers," Lord Paul, who is heading a four-member delegation of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to this university township, said in Shantiniketan in West Bengal.
Stung by the government's punitive action on electric two-wheelers, registrations in April fell by nearly a fourth to 62,581 from 82,292 in March, according to data from VAHAN. Electric two-wheeler companies, including Okinawa, Hero Electric, Ather Energy, and TVS, have all clocked their lowest registrations in the four months of this calendar year. Ola Electric has been the only exception to this bloodbath, and has crossed its March numbers, hitting 21,560 registrations in April, which is its highest in this calendar year. As a result, there have been some interesting changes in the electric two-wheeler pecking order.
Warning that India's farm subsidy had mounted to 5.6 per cent of agriculture GDP, the World Bank on Wednesday said the country should instead be investing more in rural education, social and infrastructure development.
India plans to phase in cash transfers of food and kerosene subsidies from September, saving 10-15 per cent of the $21 billion in annual outlays on the benefits by eliminating fraud, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.
'Wherever the government has provided incentives for the purchase of two-wheelers, three-wheelers, cars, buses, and trucks, it gets a push for most of these alternate fuels. '
Besides, the council has sought reduction in customs duty on import of seashells.
The government on Thursday admitted there were "pressure points" in the economy due to mounting food and petroleum subsidies, but said the growth would be "significant" this year due to good monsoon and industrial revival.
Senior policymakers say it is a tough task and the finance ministry may resort to the time-tested method of carrying forward part of the subsidy payment burden to the next fiscal year.
With farm Acts out of the picture, the government may look at reforming the input side of the agriculture sector - regulations and rules that govern seeds, fertilisers and plant chemicals. Sources said such a blueprint, which is aimed at making the life of farmers easier, with quicker approvals but not compromising on quality, is in the works as part of the 100-day agenda of Modi 3.0. Also, ways to administer fertiliser subsidy more effectively and cutting down on leakages and diversions to build on the success of neem-coated urea are being thought of.
With an eye on the adverse fallout of rising oil prices, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said the government's subsidy bill for petroleum products and fertilisers might cross the projections for 2011-12 and put fiscal consolidation plans under strain.
Challenging the widely-held view that fossil fuel subsidies benefit the poor, the UN has asked for cutting back on such mechanisms to curb greenhouse gas emissions and propel economic growth.
The savings would be better spent and might actually reach the poor, says Rahul Khullar.
The saving in 2015-16 was about Rs 7,000 crore.
Today, less than six weeks into the 2011-12 financial year, the government used up its entire budgetary provision of Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) for petroleum subsidy.
LPG alone will save us Rs 8,000 cr a year: M Veerappa Moily.
The United States on Thursday said it was ready to cut down on its export subsidies and domestic farm support provided other countries too move in that direction.
The BSA Gold Star is launched....Ola Enters e-motorbikes Biz... Bajaj, TVS To Enter e2Ws Market...
The government on Thursday approved Rs 20,001 crore in additional cash subsidy to state-owned oil companies to compensate them for selling fuel below cost in 2010-11 fiscal. With this, the government has paid a total of Rs 40,912 crore in subsidy to oil companies in 2010-11 financial year, an oil ministry official said.
'Like every Budget, this time, too, there is chatter around tinkering with the long-term capital gains tax.' 'Investors may not want to jump into the markets until there is clarity on this front.'
The Centre had set up a Commission under former Reserve Bank of India Governor Bimal Jalan to suggest steps to rationalise subsidy and help the government in effectively bringing down the fiscal deficit.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
India on Wednesday blocked an attempt by a group of WTO countries led by China to push an investment facilitation pact in the agenda of the ministerial conference here, a move which may ensure that the proposal is unlikely to be part of the final outcome document, an official said. The 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is underway. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, along with his team, is here for the meeting, which started on February 26.
The government allocated Rs 650 billion for petroleum subsidies in FY14, of which Rs 450 billion was used to pay oil marketing companies for the subsidy gap incurred in the previous financial year.
At a time when consumers increasingly embrace green mobility solutions, it is not electric cars but hybrids that are taking the lead, as automotive sales data indicate. Since January, 64,097 electric cars have been sold compared to 266,465 hybrids, according to data from the ministry of road transport and highways' Vahan dashboard. Hybrid car sales have surged from 4.42 per cent of the 4.1 million cars sold in calendar year 2022 to 7.2 per cent this year.
'If we want real democracy, the economy itself will need to be democratised.'
Pradipto Ghosh, additional secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, has indicated that a national policy on the subsidy issue is in the offing.\n\n
The world's largest cash transfer programme has eliminated around 40 million ghost connections
