Finance MInister Arun Jaitley Presents Union Budget 2015-2016

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today presented the Union Budget of India for the year 2015-2016; this happens to be the first full-fledged budget of Modi government. From the outset, this seems to be a business-friendly budget, aimed at attracting greater investment for Indian economy.

The finance minister announced an unprecedented corporate tax-cut. The tax has been slashed down from 30% to 25%; the cut would come into force in the next four years.

The government seems to have done a few things for the poor as well by introducing the social security system.

Few major announcements made by the finance minister are:

• Five ‘ultra mega’ power projects will be built to fill the yawning gap between the supply and demand of power.
• The government will invest around 70 thousand crores on the infrastructure development.
• Introduction of ‘universal social security’ that will provide the poor with an access to subsidized insurance and pensions.
• Implementation of a uniform countrywide goods and services tax (GST) by April 2016 to boost trade between different states; there are a number of different taxes in different Indian states at the present moment that make trading between them a nightmarish exercise.
• The government will transfer the welfare money direct into the recipient’s bank account to eliminate corruption and wastage.
• Wealth tax will be abolished; it will be replaced by a surcharge of 2% on the super-rich (people with an income of one crore or more).

Mr Jaitley said that the will achieve its goal of cutting the fiscal deficit to 4.1% of the GDP for the year 2014-2015 from 4.5% for the year before.

Presenting the budget, Jaitley said that the country is growing at the high rate, the inflation is down, and foreign exchange reserve is sufficient.

"We inherited a sentiment of doom and gloom. The investment community had almost written us off. We have come a long way since then. We have turned around the economy, dramatically restoring macroeconomic stability and creating the conditions for sustainable poverty elimination, job creation, durable double digit economic growth," the finance minister said.

Some experts have billed this budget as the most significant since the path-breaking budget of 1991 that liberalized the Indian market.

Experts are of the opinion that there are loop holes here and there, but if the welfare projects like the Universal Social Security is implemented as it is imagined, then the budget is nothing less than a path-breaking  one. Millions of Indian poor will come under the safety net.

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NITI Aayog: PM Calls for Higher Growth, States Demand More Fund Allocation

First meeting of the Governing Council of NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog chaired by PM Modi at his official residence at the 7 Race Course Road was dominated by the demands of greater allocation of funds to the non-NDA governed states. 

Chief Ministers like O. Panneerselvam of TN and Akhilesh Yadav of UP suggested that the success of the central schemes will only be achieved if the states' share is decreased drastically and funds are provided by the center, especially in cases of economically weaker states. 

PM said that the country will not advance if all the states are not advancing in tandem. He further said that he envisions different states competing against one another in a spirit of cooperative and competitive federalism. The world has started to look at the country, and the biggest challenge for the nation is to eliminate poverty. Job creation and poverty elimination can never be achieved without sustainable growth. “First and foremost we should aim at a high rate of growth, “the PM said, according to the officially released statement.

Talking to the media the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “States emphasized greater financial devolution from the Centre and greater flexibility in use of funds.” 

The FM further said that NITI Aayog would comprise of three sub-groups of Chief Ministers. First group would take care of the 66 centrally sponsored schemes which should be continued, transferred to States, or shelved all together. The second group would oversee skill development within the states. And the third group would be there for developing the institutional mechanisms needed for attaining success for the Swachh Bharat Mission - the PM's dream project.  

The PM urged the states to try and provide all the school within their territories with toilets so that day-to-day cleanliness can be achieved. He also suggested that a portion of funds under the MPLAD and MLALAD schemes should be devoted towards cleanliness-related activities.

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