The panel's report also provides a range for fiscal deficit and debt path of both the Union and states and also recommended additional borrowing room to states based on performance in power sector reforms. Finance Commission is a constitutional body that gives suggestions on Centre-state financial relations. The report of the 15th Finance Commission was tabled in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The states will forego around Rs 44,000 crore of tax revenue after they reduced VAT on petrol and diesel in the reminder of the fiscal but higher central tax devolution of Rs 60,000 crore will offset the losses, according to a report. After months of calls for lowering the taxes on the fuels, the Centre on November 4 cut excise duty on diesel by Rs 10 a litre and by Rs 5 on petrol. Following this, as many as 25 states and Union territories have lowered value-added tax (VAT) on these fuels.
With 7 per cent economic growth, India is not creating enough jobs as reflected by the number of applicants for vacant posts in some states, Reserve Bank's former governor Raghuram Rajan said and suggested the government needs to focus on promoting labour-intensive industries to generate employment. Rajan further said some Indians, especially those at upper level, are comfortable and have high incomes, but consumption growth from the lower half of the country has still not recovered to pre-pandemic level.
GST collections in March grew 11.5 per cent to Rs 1.78 lakh crore, buoyed by domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Monday. The gross GST collection for the last fiscal (April 2023-March 2024) stood at Rs 20.14 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mop-up in the preceding fiscal. The average monthly gross collection for FY24 stood at Rs 1.68 lakh crore, exceeding Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the preceding fiscal.
Recovering from an order dry-up and change in market conditions, Gurgaon-based Rites is looking to bid aggressively in global export and consultancy tenders and run with a volume-led approach, its chairman and managing director (CMD) Rahul Mithal said. Rites is a railway consultancy public sector undertaking (PSU) under the aegis of the Ministry of Railways. "We started the year with two huge challenges - the export order book, where no new orders had happened, and the opening up of Indian Railways quality assurance works to four players.
'Food inflation is important and if that is controlled, then consumption will go up.'
The United Kingdom extracted USD 64.82 trillion from India over a century of colonialism between 1765 and 1900 and USD 33.8 trillion of this went to the richest 10 per cent -- enough money to carpet London in notes of 50 British pound almost four times over.
Continuing on the fiscally prudent path, the Modi government in the interim Budget refrained from announcing populist measures, which will help it trim the fiscal deficit to 5.1 per cent of the GDP next fiscal and 4.5 per cent in FY26.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while unveiling the Union Budget said the proposal would make India more attractive market for investment.
The income and profits shown by various BBC group entities are "not commensurate" with the scale of their operations in India and tax has not been paid on certain remittances by its foreign entities, the income tax authorities said Friday, a day after they ended a three-day-long survey operation against the British media organisation.
From attractive EMIs to assured buyback guarantees, luxury carmakers have lined up a slew of offers to woo customers this festival season to address dwindling sales amid rising inventories.
Indirect tax revenues rose marginally by 5.6 per cent in the April-October period to over Rs 2.85 lakh crore, mainly on account of increase in service tax and customs collections.
After four years of high double-digit growth in profits, corporate earnings of Indian companies hit a speed bump in the April-June quarter of 2024 (Q1FY25), leading to the risk of a downward revision in India Inc profit estimates for FY25 and volatility in the equity market. Earnings growth slowed despite companies in most non-financial sectors reporting higher operating margins from lower commodity prices and a decline in interest costs.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said, a hike in GST rates would have hampered consumption amid the economic slowdown. The revenue augmentation panel in the Council meeting recently recommended revisiting and restructuring the GST rate slabs, besides correcting the inverted duty structure. The panel listed 24 items, including mobile phones, footwear, fabrics, LED light, medical equipment, utensils, agri machinery, pharma, and renewable components, which have an inverted duty structure, resulting in refunds of close to Rs 20,000 crore annually.
States could then stop complaining about the Centre and fashion their own economic destinies, says T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
