— Dr Subhrangshu Sekhar Sarkar
There was some confusion among the people as to whether the Bill to be presented to Parliament by Pranab Mukherjee would be for a vote on account, a budget or an interim Budget. A budget normally includes new schemes and new taxation proposals, or the doing away of taxes. Changes in income tax have to be enacted as law, while changes in customs and excise duties are by notification. Announcement of new programmes and expenditure have also to be approved by the Government in that financial year. The debate is over whether the Government can announce new schemes and programmes or notify changes in tariff in direct or indirect taxes. There is certainly the temptation that, given the impending elections, some major programme announcement are to be made or some tariff concessions be announced. While customs and excise duties can be changed at any time—Parliamentary approval is not required—changes in other taxes cannot be attempted, for it would require the Finance Bill to be passed. Articles 112-116 of the Constitution of India spell out the measures required to enact Bills relating to the financial expenditure of the Union Government.
The Government seeks a vote on account because Parliament will not be able to vote on the entire Budget before the commencement of the new financial year, starting April, due to general elections. A vote-on-account is different from both interim and full Budget as it deals only with expenditure, while interim and complete budgets deal with both expenditure and receipts. Presentation by Pranab Mukherjee on February 16 last in Parliament appears to be a ‘vote on account’ rather than ‘Interim Budget’ as announced. The first part of the speech presented a very rosy picture as it enumerated all the achievements of the UPA Government for the last five years. The figures mentioned by Mukherjee put forward some strong commitments of the Government towards inclusive growth. The Common Minimum Programme announced by the UPA Government at the time of coming to power is very much praiseworthy and is capable of changing the overall economy of the country if implemented properly. As mentioned in the Budget speech, in the first four years of the UPA Government, the economy has shown a dream run with growth rates booming throughout the tenure. Sustained growth of 9 per cent was witnessed in the last three years, said Mukherjee. The per capita income also registered the fastest growth rate during the last four years. Fiscal deficit dropped to 2.7 per cent, while the revenue deficit grew. The investment rate grew to 39 per cent and gross domestic savings showed great improvement from 29.8 per cent in 2003-04 to 37.7 per cent in 2007-08. Tax to GDP ratio rose from 9.2 per cent in 2003-04 to 4.5 per cent in 2007-08. There has been an impressive growth of around 7 per cent plus during the last four years. Though the Government has been criticised for not giving proper attention to the agricultural sector, however, the annual rate of growth in agriculture was 3.7 per cent. Food grain production has also been increased by 10 million tonnes each year to an all-time high of 230 million tonnes in 2007-08. Foreign trade rose from 23.7 per cent of GDP to 35.5 per cent of GDP in 2007-08. But the negative factor is that industrial production fell by 2 per cent in 2008 on a year to year basis. Inflation rate fell to 4.4 per cent on January 31, 2009. It is heartening to note that India is the second fastest growing economy in the world with 7.1 per cent GDP expansion in 2008-09. Export growth rate in the first nine months of 2008-09 touched 17.1 per cent. The FDI inflow between April-November 2008 was $23.3 billion, a growth of 45 per cent compared with that during the same period in 2007. The turnover of public sector companies has increased from Rs 5,87,000 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 10,87,000 crore in 2007-08. Non-performing assets of public sector banks have fallen from 7.8 per cent in 2007 to 2.3 per cent in March 2008.
The Budget proposals have been placed at the backdrop of a global economic meltdown. India is no exception to this recession. Industrial production fell by 2 per cent in December 2008. Hence, it has been a challenge for any government to sustain economic growth and development of the country. Investing in infrastructure is a very important mode to boost growth. The Government has given approval for as many as 50 infrastructure projects worth Rs 67,700 crore, which were given in-principle or final approval. The India Infrastructure Finance Company will raise Rs 10,000 crore from the market by the end of March 2009. It will raise Rs 30,000 crore from the market in the next fiscal year. The Government has relaxed the Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management (FRBM) targets to counter global economic slowdown. Plan allocation increased by 300 per cent for agriculture. Rs 632 crore has been provided for recapitalisation of regional rural banks. Central plan expenditure has been increased from Rs 2,43,386 crore to Rs 2,82,957 crore. Infusion of money into the economy would revive the economy. Keeping this in mind, the revised Budget estimates for 2008-09 has been increased to Rs 9,09,053 crore from Rs 7,50,884 crore. Allocation for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme has been increased to Rs 13,100 crore. Flagship NREGA scheme gets Rs 30,100 crore in 2009-10. Integrated Child Development Scheme gets Rs 6,705 crore in 2009-10. Budget estimate for expenditure for 2009-10 has been put at Rs 9,53,231 crore. This includes Rs 2,85,145 crore for Plan expenditure, while non-Plan spend put at Rs 6,68,883 crore. Bharat Nirman programme gets Rs 40,900 crore in 2009-10. There has been an increase in the allocation of defence expenditure to Rs 1,41,703 crore in 2009-10. A new feature of this year’s budget proposal is allocation for Unique Identification (UID) programme pegged at Rs 100 crore. Now the point of worry is that the revised fiscal deficit estimated at 6 per cent of GDP as against 2.5 per cent in the Budget estimate. Revised revenue deficit placed at 4.4 per cent as against 1 per cent in the Budget estimate for 2008-09. Fiscal deficit has gone up from Rs 1,33,287 crore in the Budget estimates to Rs 3,26,515 crore in the revised estimates for 2008-09. Revenue deficit is seen at 4 per cent, fiscal deficit at 5.5 per cent of GDP in 2009-10. Plan expenditure in 2009-10 may have to be increased substantially at the time of presentation of overall Budget to give the economy the stimulus it needs. In such cases, there is every possibility that the fiscal deficit will go up. It is a very disappointing symptom for any economy. The proposals submitted by Mukherjee does not categorically state from where the additional investment and expenditure are proposed to be met. The next government has to inherit various problems from this proposal. There has been mixed reaction among cross sections of people. The Opposition criticised the Government as it failed to come out with any plan from reviving the employment scenario at the backdrop of job cuts. The stock market reacted negatively as BSE sensex went down by more than 300 points. However, it has been a tightrope walk for the present Government just before the election. The structure and growth of the economy will depend entirely on the financial prudence of the next Government.
(The author is a faculty member at IIM, Shillong) source: assam tribune
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