High hopes are there for the people to get a much fancied budget giving scope for overcoming global downturn and Chinese pressure on rupee and the burden of 7th pay commission award. The budget hopes to tighten screws on willful defaulters in Banks and the ways and means to recover and reduce NPA to the lowest level. However, the stagnating growth rate, Government finances, direction of reforms and GST law are concerns for the Government. The main challenge for the Finance Ministry is to compromise on meeting Government’s goals for lowering the fiscal deficit to 3.5 percent of GDP. The brownie point to this budget is that the inflation is in control, except for bursts of rise in food prices, non-pan revenue expenditures are lower. The budget is expected to give fillip to public investment. New job creation is the key motive of the Modi Government is moving towards this goal in a planned way. In all we all expect a people’s budget with maximum tax benefit for the ensuing financial year.
Jayanthy S. Maniam
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
