The budget is an attempt to endow the reforms initiated in 1991, and carried further by Chidambaram in his earlier incarnation as union finance minister, with a human face. But the humanity of the...
Budget
The budget offers no measures to alleviate the debt burden of farmers. Meagre amounts have been promised for investment in infrastructure and for employment generation. In fact, the central plan...
While the finance minister is motivated primarily by revenue considerations in his approach to transaction tax by providing exemption on long-term capital gains and slashing the rate on short-term...
The union budget seems to have been drafted keeping in mind the stability of the government, while the Karnataka budget has tackled a few of the real problems affecting farmers. Clearly Karnataka's...
There is no escaping the fact that the finance minister was under severe constraints in making this budget. Not much in the way of fiscal consolidation or redeployment of resources to socially...
Budget 2004-05 promises towards ensuring attention to neglected sectors appear based on optimism as well as coalition compromise. Direct tax collections appear over-projected and a shortfall could...
The budget proposals, instead of introducing a 'tariff with only a few exceptions', have actually complicated the tariff structure in customs and excise, and burdened it with even more exemptions. If...
As an analysis of previous budgets reveals that there has always been a wide divergence between the government's promises and its performance. Overall there is very little connection between planned...
This is after all a coalition budget and so unless the finance minister is strong and has strategic dominance over the coalition, large debt and deficits are inevitable. However even within those...
The lifetime concerns of individuals, though a key focus of the Budget for 2003-04, are nevertheless addressed in such a way that human capital - the engine of growth - will not be accumulated in an...
The 2003-04 Budget fails to address the major problems of agriculture, employment generation and the social sector.
The focus of this article is not so much the quantitative or specific aspects of the budget as some qualitative issues regarding the economy. It touches on some developing trends and, since the...
In the Budget for 2003-04 the government has sought to underwrite risks faced by different segments of the population. When governments assume additional risks it is necessary to ask whether the mode...
The growth impetus that is hoped for in the 2003-04 Budget is to come not from any structural changes in the economy or through pushing up infrastructure investment, but is expected to be consumption...
Fiscal consolidation is a desirable goal in itself and would also facilitate the attainment of the other four objectives of the 2003-04 Budget. Such consolidation would require, primarily, a...
