-Livemint.com * Trying to project lower interest rates as a panacea for everything isn’t the right way to go about it. The central government just played an April Fool’s joke on a large section of India’s middle class, which invests in small savings schemes. Late Wednesday evening, the government announced a substantial cut in interest rates on small savings schemes for the three months to June. The interest rates on Senior Citizen Savings Scheme...
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Fiscal transparency jacks up ‘expenditure’ numbers in the Union Budget 2021-22
In order to understand why the Union Budget 2021-22 is being termed as ‘transparent’, it has to be read simultaneously with the 15th Finance Commission Main Report for 2021-26. But first, let us discuss 'fertilizer subsidy'. The budget documents for Union Budget 2021-22 show that the spending on ‘fertilizer subsidy’ was slashed from Rs. 1,33,947 crore in 2020-21 (revised estimate) to Rs. 79,530 crore in 2021-22 (budget estimate). However, the budgetary...
More »With Savings rate falling, phasing out exemptions may hit it harder -Udit Misra
-The Indian Express The Savings rate, expressed as a percentage of the gross domestic product, reflects the pool of investible funds within the country that are available for the government and private businesses to use for investment purposes. The government’s plan to gradually get rid of all exemptions and deductions under the personal income tax regime — in a bid to provide lower taxes and a simplified tax architecture as well as...
More »Move to cash transfers will lead to savings, put agriculture on sustainable growth path -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express All such investments will go a long way to augment farmers’ incomes in a sustainable manner. Else, I am afraid, much of the talk in the Union budget for agri-reforms will remain mere rhetoric. Although the Union budget is basically an accounting exercise of revenues and expenditures for the coming year, economy-watchers anxiously wait for the finance minister to announce major economic reforms. In that sense, the budget of...
More »Spend to grow -C Rangarajan and DK Srivastava
-The Indian Express Government should explore all avenues to expand capital expenditures From a level of 8.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017-18, quarterly GDP growth fell to 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20, a fall of 3.1 percentage points. The slowdown of the Indian economy is no longer in dispute. Thankfully, the government has come out of denial mode. The critical question is: What should...
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