Historic Budget to satisfy everyone’s need but no body’s greed
Underlying
message from the budget is that, it has abstained from window dressing with
populist announcements, in spite of elections in five states, and has hit at
the core of the economy where it hurts more.
FM
has wonderfully touched the problematic area of the economy and has taken
corrective measures having far reaching consequences. Important area, such as rural connectivity,
farmers woes, youth employment, catalyzing demands, government investments,
electoral reforms, higher tax compliance, lowering of taxes for individuals,
reducing corporate taxes of MSME’s with turnover up to 50 crores, tackling the
issues for remonetisation and moving towards low transaction cost digital
economy, large scale capitalization support for unorganized sector and taking
steps towards ease of doing business, creating rural infrastructure and making
available low cost housing and social security for the poor and left out
segments of the society etc. are some important initiatives.
You
name any segment in the country or any sector of the economy, Prime Minister
Narendra Modiji’s this budget has something for everyone. It’s like a magic box
through which FM has been able to satisfy everyone’s need but not anyone’s
greed.
Government
has brought down inflation from 6% in July to 3.4% in December 2016, current
account deficit from about 1% of GDP to 0.3% in first half year of 2016/17 and growth
in FDI growing to 36% despite reduction of global FDI flows by 5%, are all big
achievements.
Though
there are challenges of meeting global recession, but Government is tackling
them head on. Constitutional amendment bill for GST has been passed and
landmark decision for demonetisation of high value currency to curb Black money
and corruption has been successfully implemented. Insolvency and Bankruptcy
Code is in place to improve overall banks health. For catalyzing demand; Government Investments is being increased to Rs 3,96,000
crores.
Governments
Agenda for Budget for 2017/18 is to ‘Transform, Energise and Clean India having
ten clear cut road maps for growth. Basically government has committed to
double farmers income by 2022, providing basic infrastructure in rural areas,
creating employment for youth through education and skilling. Strengthening of
Social security, housing and health facilities for the underprivileged. Infrastructure
for all. Stable and stronger Institutions in the financial sector. Moving
towards digital economy for transparency and lower cost of transactions.
Efficient delivery mechanism for all public services, optimal & judicious
fiscal management and efficient & proper tax administration. These are the road
maps through which the government wants to propel growth and catalyze economy.
Our
sectoral analysis brings out clearly the above facts. For tackling Farmer’s Woes; a sum of Rs. 10 lakh crore is
allocated as credit to farmers. Their 60day’s
interest on loan has been waived; NABARD fund has been increased to Rs. 40,000
crore. A dedicated micro irrigation fund has been set up with Rs 5,000 crore
initial corpuses; irrigation
corpus is doubled to Rs 40,000 crore.
And a model law on contract farming is prepared by NITI Aayog and shared
with the States for implementation.
For Rural Development and Connectivity; Rs 1,87,223
crore have been allocated. A daily target of building 131 kms of road
has been set. Promise to achieve
100% rural electrification by March 2018 and the government target’s to bring 1
crore households out of poverty by 2019.
For Skilling and Education of the Young India;
100 international skill centres will be
established with courses in foreign languages. A National testing agency is to be established for all entrance
exams and focus will be on 3,479 educationally backward blocks.
Most important initiative of Electoral
Reforms; starts with limiting, the maximum amount of cash donation for a
political party to Rs. 2,000 from any one source. An amendment is being proposed to the RBI Act to enable issuance
of electoral bonds, with maturity date. A donor can purchase these bonds from
banks or post offices through cheque or digital transactions; only registered
political parties can redeem these. Now
it’s compulsory for all political parties to file Income Tax return by
December end every year.
For increased Tax Compliance; after
demonetization, all deposit data is to be analysed to increase tax net. No cash transactions above Rs 3 lakh
are allowed. Time period of
revising tax returns is reduced to 12 months and people filing I-T returns for
the first time will not come under any government scrutiny. And a Simple
one-page return for people with an annual income of Rs. 5 lakh other than
business income has been prescribed.
Even there is Lowering of Tax rates for
individuals; Existing rate of tax for individuals between Rs. 2.5- Rs 5 lakh is reduced to 5% from 10%,
therefore all other categories of tax-payers in subsequent brackets will also get
a benefit of Rs 12,500.
There has been reduction in Corporate Taxes
for MSME sector. In order to make MSME companies more viable, for small
companies with a turnover of up to Rs 50 crore to 25%. 67 lakh companies, about
ninety percent fall in this category. Lending target for Pradhan Mantri Mudra
Yojana has almost been doubled to Rs 2,44,000 crores.
Most important area of focus for economic
growth is Ease of Doing Business and government has taken lot of initiatives; threshold
limit for audit of business entities who opt for presumptive income scheme is increased
from ` 1 crore to ` 2 crores. Similarly, the threshold for maintenance of books
for individuals and HUF increased from turnover of 10 lakhs to 25 lakhs or
income from 1.2 lakhs to 2.5 lakhs. Time
for completion of scrutiny assessments is being compressed further from 21
months to 18 months for Assessment Year 2018-19 and further to 12 months for
Assessment Year 2019-20 and thereafter.
Incentive
to low cost housing will provide houses to the weaker sections of the society
and will boast to real state sector; Affordable housing will be given
infrastructure status. A change in capital gains tax has been brought to
support real estate and rate of interest on EMI has been lowered. Condition of
presumptive rent, if housing are kept vacant and not sold, will put pressure
for builders to sell flats and increase availability.
Social Security for the poor and left out
segments of the society is very crucial and government has done a lot. It has stepped
up allocation to Rs 1.84 trillion for various schemes for women and children. There is an action plan to eliminate
leprosy by 2018, TB by 2025 and reduce IMR to 29 in 2019. Legislative reforms
to simplify and amalgamate existing labour laws are in pipeline to boast labour
rights. Allocations to Scheduled
Casts, is increased to Rs 52,393 crore. Scheduled Tribes given Rs 31,920 crore
and Minority affairs allocated Rs 4,195 crore.
All
these provisions and announcement clearly points out that the budget is pro
poor, pro farmers and rural India and benefits particularly those segments of
the society who have been left out from the participation in the growth of the
economy over the last several years.
Gopal
Krishna Agrawal
National
Spokesperson of BJP on Economic Affairs
gopal.agarwal@bjp.org
No comments:
Post a Comment