Tag: budget

  • Bilaspur’s educationists called the budget disappointing

    Reacting to the general budget presented by the central government, teachers unions and other teachers described it as disappointing. He has the same opinion regarding education related to issues related to the working class.

    There is nothing special in this budget for the education world. There were expectations about infrastructure, teachers uplift and new educational institute that it would be arranged in view of the demand of time, but there is no clear provision in the budget. Also, the eyes of the government employees are fixed on the tax slab, but it is like the former.

    The old pension scheme was expected to be restored for a secure future after the retirement of employees who had spent their time in government service, removing the prohibition on dearness allowance due to the Corona epidemic, increasing the income tax exemption limit, and No relief was given in any of the cases.

  • Nothing for ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ as budget for WCD Ministry reduced by over 18 per cent

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: The proposed budget for the Union Women Child Development Ministry was reduced by over 18 per cent as compared to the last fiscal. Also, there is no allocation earmarked for the Centre’s flagship Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme.

    The sum set aside for the ministry in 2021-22 is Rs 24,435 crore. It was Rs 30, 001 last year, which was later revised to Rs 21,008 crore.

    Of the total budget, the highest amount — Rs 20, 105 crore — has been allocated to the newly announced Saksham Anganwadi and Mission Poshan 2.0 scheme.

    Mission Poshan 2.0 in an umbrella scheme covering the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Anganwadi services, Poshan Abhiyaan, scheme for adolescent girls and the national creche scheme.

    However, schemes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, one stop centres, Swadhar Greh, child protection, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana and Ujjawala have not been allocated anything in this budget.

    The budget of autonomous bodies such as Central Adoption Resource Agency have either remained the same or received marginal raise.

    “To strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome, we will merge the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the Poshan Abhiyan and launch Mission Poshan 2.0,” said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. 

    The total amount for the social services sector, which includes nutrition and social security and welfare, has been increased from Rs 2,411.80 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 3,575.96 crore.

  • Budget woes: Customs duty hike may make ACs costlier, says industry

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has proposed an increase in customs duty on items that included mobile phone parts and compressors.

    Industry body Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) President Kamal Nandi said, “The customs duty revision for the compressors, used in refrigeration and air conditioning, from 12.5% to 15% will promote indigenous manufacturing… There have been increases in import duties on motors and PCBs as well.”

    He, however, added, “these are good for the medium and long term but will impact price adversely in short term due to insufficient output capacities.”

    All compressors used in domestic manufacturing of ACs and refrigerators are imported from overseas. Hence a customs duty hike may impact prices of finished goods.

    Manufacturers such as Panasonic, Blue Star and LG said that they would bear the impact instead of passing it on to the consumers.

    The Union Budget 2021 also announced a 2.5% customs duty on certain mobile phone parts and power banks for greater domestic value addition.

    Counterpoint Research Associate Director Tarun Pathak said there might be an increase in prices for short term or a modest increase. 

    Sitharaman also proposed to hike customs duty on specific auto parts like ignition wiring sets, safety glass, parts of signaling equipment, from 7.5-10% to 15%. The parts would also attract agri infrastructure and development cess at 5%.

  • Budget 2021: Freight corridors in focus as Sitharaman announces record Rs 1.10 lakh allocation for Railways

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced a record Rs 1.10 lakh crore allocation for the Indian Railways of which Rs 1.07 lakh crore would be for capital expenditure.

    “The plan is to create a future ready railway system by 2030 bringing down the logistic cost for industry is at the core of the strategy to enable Make In India,” she announced in Parliament.

    Noting that the eastern and western dedicated freight corridors would be completed by mid-2022, Sitharaman proposed a host of other initiatives.

    “The following additional initiatives are also proposed. The Sonenagar-Gomoh section of 263 km on EDFC will be taken up in PPP mode this year itself. Gomoh-Dankuni section of 274.3 km will also be taken up shortly in short succession,” she said.

    The Railways, Sitharaman said, will take up works for future dedicated freight corridor projects — East Coast Corridor from Kharagpur to Vijaywada, East-West Corridor from Bhusawal to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South Corridor from Itarsi to Vijaywada. Complete electrification of broad gauge route would be done by December 2023. 

    Stressing on the passenger convenience and safety, she said the Railways would introduce the aesthetically-designed vistadome Linke Hofmann Busch coaches on tourist routes for better travel experience to passengers.

    Two new technologies — metro lite and metro neo — will also be adopted by the national transporter to provide metro services at much less cost with same experience, convenience in tier II and tier III cities and peripheral areas.

    For safety, trains on high-density network would be provided with indigenously developed automatic train protection system that eliminates train collision resulting out of human error.  

  • Budget 2021: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hits back at Rahul Gandhi on crony capital comment

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday hit back at Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the Budget favours certain crony capitalists, saying Congress-ruled Kerala-government in the past had handed over a port in the state to the same businessman on invitation basis.

    Soon after the Budget presentation, Congress leader Gandhi alleged that the Narendra Modi government plans to hand over India’s assets to crony capitalists through stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including two PSU banks and an insurance company, in the next fiscal.

    “Forget putting cash in the hands of people, Modi government plans to handover India’s assets to his crony capitalist friends,” he said after the presentation of the Union Budget. Responding to the comment of Gandhi, the Finance Minister said he repeats this particular question every 15 days.

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    “The party which even today does not know to explain if I take one example of Kerala under Congress giving away sea port development on invitation basis to one of the crony capitalists that he is talking about,” she questioned.

    She referred to Congress-led Kerala government inviting Adani Group, who Gandhi referred to as crony capitalist friends of Modi government, to Vizhinjam Port in the state.

    Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, (APSEZ), India’s largest port developer and part of the Adani Group in December 2015 formally began development of international transhipment project in Vizhinjam, Kerala.

    CLICK HERE FOR HIGHLIGHTS OF BUDGET 2021

    “Can he (Gandhi) explain as to how for developing Vinizam port a crony capitalist, I would not call him that but he uses that word, was invited by the Congress party….if he cannot answer that I think Rahul Gandhi should understand either understand nothing what he is speaking about or he is being ill-advised,” she said.

    Unveiling the PSE policy in Budget 2021-22, the Finance Minister said barring four strategic areas, public sector companies in other sectors will be divested. The policy would give a clear roadmap for disinvestment in strategic and non-strategic sectors.

  • Expected relief, budget of mobile and charger increased

    Mobile traders were hoping that the budget would provide relief on mobile, charger and other products. The 18 percent GST will be reduced to 12 percent. But in contrast, the customary duty on mobile, charger and other products has been increased by 2.5 percent in the general budget presented on Monday. Due to this, its prices will increase.

    Mobile, charger as well as other electronics products will also be affected. Chhattisgarh Chamber of Commerce vice-president and electronics businessman Rajesh Vaswani said that now mobile and charger prices will definitely increase further. It will be harmful and business will decline. The effect of this is that any consumer going abroad will be able to buy expensive mobiles from there itself.

    It will be available for expensive after shopping here. He said that though the budget has taken care of other areas. He said that the effect of this will be seen in the mobile market as well. The price of the mobile will be fixed according to the price of the mobile, at least from Rs 500 to maximum.

  • Sitharaman’s ‘Economic Vaccine’ coming on Monday; Will Budget 2021-22 go beyond ‘bahi-khata’?

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday will deliver her promised budget like no other that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving the economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours.

    As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.

    ALSO READ | Does the FM have elbow room in Budget formulation?

    Sitharaman, who had in her first budget in 2019 replaced leather briefcase that had been for decades used for carrying budget documents with a traditional red cloth ‘bahi-khata’, had earlier this month stated that the budget for the fiscal year beginning April will be “like never before”.

    The budget, economists and experts say, will be the starting point for picking up the pieces after the economic destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    And it must go beyond being just a ‘bahi khata’ or a ledger of accounts, as well as canning old schemes in a new bottle.

    It has to be a vision statement, a roadmap to get the world’s fastest-growing major economy back on track.

    A prescient budget, which goes a long way in instilling confidence, cannot be replaced by ‘mini-budgets’ such as the one in September 2019 when the government cut corporate tax rate just two months after Sitharaman presented her maiden one, or the periodic announcements of economic measures that dotted 2020.

    ALSO READ | Opposition must compete, present ‘shadow’ budget

    There is a larger consensus among economists that the annual GDP for FY21 will decline by 7-8 per cent, one of the weakest performances among the developing nations.

    The government has to play a critical role in pulling the economy out of the trough.

    While the pandemic is showing signs of being less virulent, a gradual progress in the vaccination programme is fuelling hope for a better future.

    A sustainable economic revival will need a policy catalyst.

    That’s where this budget assumes a special relevance.

    The pandemic struck at a time when the economy was already caught in the grip of a growth slowdown.

    GDP growth touched an 11-year low of 4 per cent in 2019-20.

    A steadily declining investment rate has been a major factor in causing deceleration prior to the coronavirus crisis.

    And the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus in March last year brought economic activities to a grinding halt, causing a sharp contraction in the GDP in two successive quarters of FY21, pushing the economy into a recessionary phase.

    In response, the government announced a number of policy measures under Aatmanirbhar Bharat package 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 to support the economy.

    The package was a combination of grant, equity and liquidity measures by the central government, state governments and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

    While the headline stimulus was pegged at close to Rs 21 lakh crore, the actual fiscal impact of the economic packages works out to be about Rs 3.5 lakh crore (1.8 per cent of GDP).

    Also, since last budget, the size of the economy has reduced from Rs 2.24 lakh crore nominal GDP considered in the FY21 budget to Rs 1.94 lakh crore.

    There has been lower-than-budgeted revenue growth and higher expenditure to offset the adverse impact of the pandemic.

    Among the most-watched figures in the budget would be the expenditure on vaccination in FY22 which could be shared among the central government, state governments and households.

    India has started the largest vaccination programme in the world from January 16 and is using two vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin.

    Also, to be watched is the revenue that the government is projecting to receive from the privatisation of companies such as Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), Air India and Shipping Corporation of India (SCI).

    Market borrowings are expected to remain elevated and external deficit financing would increase.

    Higher capital expenditure outlay for National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) programme that has an aggregate investment target of Rs 111 lakh crore over the period 2020-25 and making recently introduced Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme more attractive to lure foreign manufacturers to boost domestic manufacturing are top expectations from the budget.

    Acuité Ratings & Research Limited said there are two primary objectives before the government at this stage – reignite the growth engine in the economy while committing itself to a medium-term fiscal consolidation path.

    “The growth impetus should incentivise demand in the near term and ensure its sustainability over the medium to long term.

    Four elements must be activated to build economic vibrancy over the long term – give infrastructure a significant push through public and private investments, facilitate large-scale private and foreign investments across industrial, services and agricultural sector; incentivise private consumption in the near term without significant compromises on tax revenues; and step up allocation in health and education sectors.”

    Arun Singh, Global Chief Economist at Dun and Bradstreet said unprecedented circumstances require unprecedented measures.

    “Globally, governments are facing massive policy and operational challenges and are adopting unconventional measures to revive their economy. A big bang package of reforms is thus on the anvil.”

    Undeniably, the government has a difficult task of manoeuvring the nascent recovery of the economy and managing the fiscal burden, which is expected to remain high not only for the current year but also for the subsequent years, he said.

    “In the current scenario, it would be impossible not only for India but for countries globally to shoulder the pandemic without fiscal destabilization in the short to medium term.”

    India Ratings and Research said the government finances need to be steered in a way that puts the economy back on tracks. Projecting a Rs 60,000 crore revenue shortfall in the fiscal year ending March 31, it estimated the fiscal deficit at over 7 per cent in the current fiscal as against budget target of 3.5 per cent.

    For the next, it put the fiscal deficit at 6.2 per cent.

    The budget will have to address a number of issues – health infrastructure, reviving demand, banking sector reforms, fiscal consolidation and implementation of 15th Finance Commission report, said Brickwork Ratings.

    Centrum said, “We expect the upcoming budget to prioritise growth-oriented measures with the commitment to warrant that the momentum of recovery seen in the economy recently remains sustainable.”

    The emphasis of the budget is likely to be on the revitalization of durable consumption impulses at the current juncture as the supply-side measures have already been implemented.

    Alongside, the key focus will also remain on the further fostering of private investments as well after the initiation of a slew of measures like corporate tax rate cut, NIP and PLI scheme on this front, it said.

    Amidst a plethora of market expectations around the budget FY22, key areas where the central government is highly anticipated to put its more attention to are the establishment of a bad bank to clean up bank balance sheets, presenting finer contours of the PLI scheme for boosting manufacturing for the 10 sectors announced earlier and resources likely to be made available.

    Others include offering sops to reinvigorate household consumption demand via tax incentives for spending and higher deductions on housing loans coupled with the introduction of a COVID Cess that is expected to be levied on high-income individuals, it said.

    India Ratings and Research believes that the major focus of the government to revive the COVID-19 battered economy has till now been on the supply side, but it is high time to change gears and focus on the demand side as well, lest the ongoing recovery begins to lose steam.

    Its budget expectations include spending on infrastructure especially that are employment-intensive and have a shorter turnaround time, creation of development financial institutions, continue with relief/income support to the households who are at the bottom of the pyramid and higher allocation to MGNREGS as it provided a safety net not only to rural households but also to the workers who migrated back to rural areas.

    Also, more support to real estate given its backward-forward linkage in the economy especially affordable housing segment, boosting micro small and medium enterprises, reprioritisation of both revenue and capital expenditure towards essentials such as top priority to mass vaccination/public health, reprioritisation of expenditure and mobilisation of higher non-tax revenue, it added.

    GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, said the need of the hour is to increase credit flows, especially to small and medium enterprises sector, as well as investment in education and health sectors to boost production and consumption.

    Gargi Rao, Economic Research Analyst at GlobalData, said, “The expectations from the upcoming budget are mainly inclined towards infrastructure development, tax concessions for elderly to provide a breather for consumers to increase their overall consumption, along with increasing domestic production.”

    The budget will come as an economic vaccine for the pandemic-battered economy and steer India with the much-needed stimulus to boost demand, consumer confidence and at the same time boost the purchasing power of the people, the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said, adding incentives to industries like textiles, apparel, leather, food processing, construction and retail are expected.

  • Worry for government? Economic survey finds poor service in private hospitals

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Despite push from the government for promotion of privatisation in the health sector, the latest Economic Survey has underlined the poor quality of service in private hospitals and suggested setting up agencies to assess the quality of doctors and hospitals.

    As per the report tabled in Parliament on Friday, while the share of public institutions has increased both in hospital and outpatient care, the private sector dominates in total healthcare provision in India.

    Around 74 per cent of outpatient care and 65 per cent of hospitalisation care is provided through the private sector in urban India.

    Citing a research study, the report highlights that a large proportion of deaths in India manifests due to poor quality of healthcare than insufficient access.

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    To understand the difference in quality between the public and private sector providers, data from the Centre’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana has also been used.

    The data show that mortality rate for neonatal procedures is much higher in private hospitals than in public hospitals — 3.84 per cent and 0.61 per cent, respectively.

    Also, public sector patients get readmitted to the same hospital 64 per cent of the time versus 70 per cent for private hospitals.

    “So, a large proportion of deaths in India manifesting due to poor quality of healthcare is likely to reflect that the quality of treatment in the private sector may not be significantly better than that in the public sector in India,” says the report.

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    The report also says the problem of asymmetric information in healthcare is reflected in the substantial variation in costs for treating the same disease between the public and private sector.

    As argued above, the quality of treatment in the private sector does not seem to be markedly better when compared to the public sector. 

  • Finance Minister gave four-five mini-budgets in 2020, upcoming budget will be seen as part of that series: PM

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Asserting that this decade is very important for the bright future of India and should be fully utilised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that a golden opportunity has come before the nation to fulfill the dreams seen by the freedom fighters for the country.

    While addressing media ahead of the commencement of the Budget Session of Parliament, PM Modi said that all MPs will make the Budget session very productive. He said that the Union Budget 2021 will be seen as a part of those 4-5 mini budgets announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020.

    “Today commences the first session of this decade. This decade is very important for the bright future of India. A golden opportunity has come before the nation to fulfill the dreams seen by the freedom fighters. This decade should be fully utilised. Keeping this in mind, there should be discussions in this session focussing on the decade – this is expected by the nation. I believe that we will not lag behind in making our contribution for the fulfilment of people’s aspiration,” he added.

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    “This is the Budget Session. For the first time in India’s history, in a way, the Finance Minister had to present 4-5 mini budgets in 2020 in the form of different packages. So this Budget will be seen as a part of those 4-5 mini budgets, I believe this,” he added.

    PM Modi further said that he believes that parliamentarians will not lag behind in their contribution towards the fulfilment of people’s aspirations by making full use of Parliament.

    The first part of the session will continue till February 15. The second part of the session will be held from March 8 to April 8.

    Rajya Sabha will function from 9 am to 2 pm and Lok Sabha from 4 pm to 9 pm with Zero Hour and Question Hour.

  • Budget Session: No MP has tested positive for COVID-19 till now, say sources

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Budget Session today, sources have confirmed that till now, not a single Member of Parliament has been tested positive for COVID-19.

    Speaking to ANI, the sources informed, “Almost 140 Members of Parliament would be bringing their own COVID-19 test reports from the states they are arriving from. Not even a single MP has been tested positive for COVID-19 till now.”

    Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to table the Economic Survey 2020-21 in Parliament today, two days before the Union Budget is presented during the Budget Session.

    The Budget Session will begin today with an address by President Ram Nath Kovind to the joint sitting of two houses of Parliament.

    The first part of the session will continue till February 15. The second part of the session will be held from March 8 to April 8.

    Rajya Sabha will function from 9 am to 2 pm and Lok Sabha from 4 pm to 9 pm with Zero Hour and Question Hour.