Budget on 28th may be a glimmering glee

Arun Jaitley, the finance minister is a bit worried man in these days as he has to table a full finance budget on 28^th February, 2015 for the fist time. This budget will probably stream a ray of hope because in the past nine months, the way this government is laboring, their efforts cannot go in vain. The finance minister will be putting out his best efforts to ensure the economy  must be on a sustainable growth path for a long period.  A plethora of decisions has been taken by Modi and his team to rejuvenate the economy and it has come out of  the dark alley to follow somewhat bright sunshine. Under Modi’s leadership, various decisions pertaining to revitalize the economy have shown a reasonable output.  These include forward movement on GST, coal block reallocation, and increasing the FDI cap in some critical sectors etc.  Despite the mild criticism showered on Modi’s administrative acumen by our President to take the course of promulgating ordinances successively, he has shown his enough courage to take this route to speed up the reforms.

The last decade under the governance of UPA, they have smitten the economic conditions of the country with the paralytic attack of indecisions one after another, ultimately crippling them.  Their inactivity and wrangling between the ministers, party members and also the cadres could not able to solve any problems of the people and the nation and ultimately, they have stultified the voters to throw them from the power by a humiliating defeat in the last parliament election.

After Modi starts handling the mantle, despite world’s economic crises, he has somehow managed to show a steadfast attitude to bring India to a positive curve of growth.  But through this budget, Jaitley has to literally grapple with, both domestic and international challenges.

The most optimistic part of the present macroeconomic environment is that it is currently showing a better health, particularly on the external front.  The current account deficit has almost moderated.  The exchange rate volatility has been put under control and lowering down of the oil price has affected the fiscal deficit positively. The inflation has also reduced.  Although the economy has performed reasonably well in the past couple of months, this activity of growth oriented performance needs to be maintained.  So, in this budget, the duo of Modi and Jaitley has to provide a pragmatic approach to bring in more investment and generation of employment.

This is the first full fledged budget of this present government and Jaitley has to spell out the blue-print of the success of the future economic growth of the country. By curtailing wasteful expenditure and abolishing the various popular schemes, which only provokes government to spend money for unproductive measures, the government has to formulate this budget more growth oriented.  Jaitley has to emphasize the formation of various policies to increase the cycle of investment.  The public spending needs to be encouraged to speed up the reforms.  Further, if Jaitley can substantiate the policy changes in this regard in this budget, the private sector investment will be expedited. Further, the public spending will be helpful to create infrastructure assets, which can be subsequently handed over to the private sector to run the venture and share the revenue with the government at an  agreed upon formula. 

To allure the private sectors to invest more in various core sector projects, the lending institutions have to leave the bureaucratic mind set-up.  Needless to say, the investment spree needs to be encouraged, but at the same time through the announcement of various  investment policies in this budget and how to implement the same, this type of private investment is to be thoroughly checked and monitored just not to increase the burden of NPA.

Further, Modi’s programs of “Make in India” and “Swachh Bharat” campaigns are to be translated into economic configurations and budget must take adequate actions, so that the manufacturing activities particularly of small and medium sectors are getting increased.  The various economic proposals should also be highlighted in this budget to substantiate the campaign of “Swachh Bharat”.

The budget must focus to revive the activities of SEZ by providing more fiscal benefits, as originally given to them. The budget must ensure to unshackle the various procedural constraints, so that foreign investors find the business environment of India as an investment friendly country.

The Redressal system of grievances must be expedited and budget must focus on this activity to ease the feelings of the investors that India is the right place for safe investment to start any business venture.

More disposable income must be available in the hands of common people, so that they get encouraged to spend more for household items, white goods and some luxurious and precious items enabling the economy to gear up.  The income tax  benefits under some of the prominent sections like 80c, 80cc, and 24b are to be made more lucrative and by reducing the quantum of tax on each slab, if this budget can bring more people in the tax net, the same will be more beneficiary.

The formation of new  regulatory bodies to protect the NPA, monitor the wasteful expenditure, encourage the public expenditure and private-government participation for various rural projects mainly in infrastructure, can be thought off for an effective budget presentation. These bodies must be provided with executive power to sort the problem and take remedial course of actions across the table; otherwise, this exercise will have no meaning to start with.

Under Modi’s stewardship, India has already earned a special niche in the world’s investment map.  Now, Jaitley has to take advantage of the same by presenting a correct mix of feel-happy budget  by dwarfing the unproductive expenses even at the cost of losing the vote bank, to the satisfaction of all the investors spreading across the globe.  Then only, this budget, which is now  the talk of the country and the benchmark to start a new era of growth can serve the real purpose of economic upliftment  continuously for many years.