-The Hindu Even with closures, capex exceeded plan, says Expenditure Secretary Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan said the government has been very careful and realistic in its expenditure and receipts projections for 2021-22, and that its push for capital expenditure is the largest ever over a two-year period. Excerpts: * You have called it an expansionary budget, but overall spending is just about ₹33,000 crore in 2021-22 over this year’s revised estimates (RE). Also,...
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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 »The ailing economy needs much more than what Budget 2021 offers -Himanshu
-The Indian Express While the government has failed to deliver what was promised through the main budget and subsequent mini-budgets, estimates for next year also point to missed opportunities to use fiscal measures to revive the ailing economy. Expectations from Budget 2021 were high. Unsurprisingly so, for an economy battered by two years of slowdown, with a pre-pandemic annual growth rate of 4 per cent being a decadal low and the subsequent...
More »Future of Indian agriculture and small farmers: Role of policy, regulation and farmer agency -Sukhpal Singh
-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support price) or too little. The question of future of Indian agriculture has been around for some time now since the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that include permitting private wholesale markets,...
More »Despite some hits, the Budget has crucial misses -R Nagaraj
-The Hindu That there is no targeted employment programme to alleviate the immediate crisis is a matter of concern The Budget, at its simplest, is the government’s tentative income and expenditure statement. Like all financial statements, the devil lies in the fine print. At its broadest, the Budget is a pious statement of the government’s policy and ideological intentions. It is also the government’s statement of how it seeks to tackle the...
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