-Down to Earth States, already flush with cash surplus of Rs 1.6 lakh crore, will get significantly raised share from the central taxes. Along with this financial devolution, the Central government is also going to devolve the responsibility of planning and implementation of centrally sponsored schemes to states in the coming budget. This makes state budgets the key instruments of gauging the social sector Just four days before the Union budget, the...

-PTI Chandigarh: Punjab government on Friday asked the Centre to reconsider its decision of stopping foodgrain procurement by FCI from Punjab, saying it will prove to be "very harmful" for the farming community and could lead to "distress selling". "The Centre's move of stopping procurement of foodgrain from states like Punjab could prove to be very harmful for state growers as they could be denied of appropriate prices of their crop (in...

-The Hindu FM's Budget speech dwelt on agriculture, public investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and social sector spending. States to be equal partners in economic growth; move to making India cashless society; social sector programmes to continue. Some of the challenges mentioned by the Finance Minister are: poor agricultural income, decline in manufacturing ; and the need for fiscal discipline. Here are sector-wise highlights: TAXATION 1 Abolition of Wealth Tax. 2 Additional 2% surcharge for the super...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The plan outlay of 2015-16 reflects the compositional shift in the allocations for various Programmes and Schemes in view of high devolution; 42% of Union Taxes, to States as per the recommendation of 14th Finance Commission. Making his Budget Speech while presenting the General Budget 2015-16, the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley said that consequent to this substantially higher devolution, many schemes on the State...

-The Hindu Lauds Finance Commission recommendations for revenue share Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said on Friday that calculations showed that the total transfers from the Centre to the States as a percentage of the divisible pool of its net tax revenue would remain nearly the same even after the acceptance of the 14th Finance Commission's recommendations. However, transfers from the Central government would no longer be scheme-and-grant-based, and it would rather be...