Saturday 2 March 2013

Is this year's Budget worthwhile?


Finally after a seemingly long week I could afford to manage some time for a  look at the Annual Receipt of FY 2012-13 which I must commend is very well propounded with consideration for  most of the sectors if not all .
Our beloved FM has tabled on  the last working day of Feb a budget that might not ostensibly be a populist one but keeping in view the exigent state of our economy , he took the right action and might have left many deepening their disliking of congress.To talk of the positives first , here is what I put forth.

  1.  Tax being the most  significant part of the budget ( in contrast to the general perceived notion of budget being all about tax) has inclined  in favour of the lowly remunerated tax payers for the incentivised rebate and the exempted home loan interest although the terms make it dubious to claim its full benefit but that's why I took a special mention of lowly remunerated tax payers. And he managed to break the tag of a pro rich congress by imposing and surging every duty that came under his ambit on the rich that was made a gimmick after these taxes were abolished in 2009  .Ex-Surcharges and excise to name a few
  2. Increase of duties on mobile phone and high end SUVs and imported cars would do us two favours .Firstly  it will vasten the revenue base of our CFI and limit our current account deficit.( Kudos to you for knocking on the right door of the affluent class .These people ought to be reminded of their obligation to the society in return.
  3. An all women bank acts as a SHG's sentiment booster that will reprieve the shackled part of the Indian society to enhance their creditworthiness and  will reduce all the tantrums of the erstwhile common banks to which the women kept imploring if they don't have something to vouch them.
  4. FIIs will get a sigh of relief after the speculative TRC that would have become sine qua non for investing under SEBI's ambit .The only reason for hullabaloo was to evade from the tax over the capital gains and to benefit out from the India Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance agreement

 Negatives:

  • A superfluous defence budget as usual.What's the point in laying out an stupendously massive budget when the economy is in doldrums .Although I concur for not leaving any opportunity to anyone for marching over our nation but the CAD alongwith the widening fiscal deficit chasm seeks for higher attention.Sir there are many other priorities that equals defence if not more .If your govt would have given a chance for privatising the manufacturing industrial base which is  hitherto not sanctioned , you surely would have saved big bucks and spend it on some of your flagships. Hope to see this topic gets debatable in this session of parliament.  
  • Your concurrence to JDU' s demand for special status to Bihar was uncalled for given the high GSDP it has achieved in the last decade and still growing .It is also a contravention to the existing provision of our constitution in which special status is meant for a state having irregular terrain , international borders and population density of which nothing is compelling .Also it will add burden to your pockets for the grants to the state and will ask for a constitutional amendment . And other underdeveloped states demanding for accruing with  the same privilege is worth mentioning.
  • Although I would have loved to see some stringent mechanism to reduce imports of all the unproductive assets , gold in particular and to lower the education cess which takes a toll on my lowly remunerated savings account as well as I misread the tax clauses and lost out on some 5 grand extra .

In a nutshell ,a prudently thought out budget in a precarious scenario with almost everything subsumed under the ministry's purview .Question is if he can bridge out the Fiscal Deficit gap and contain it to the target estimated unlike the past year's squandered budget.

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