The Union Government seems to have realised that freebies don’t work. Subsidies are now being targeted instead of being freely distributed. It has a balanced fiscal discipline with development, stated DS Mishra, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Chhattisgarh in a panel discussion conducted by IIM Raipur over Union Budget 2014–15.
Quoting Pope Francis, ‘Money must serve, not rule’, Mishra appreciated that the budget seemed to have moved in that direction. He said that the budget has tried to bridge the gap between income inequalities.
Mishra welcomed the move of healthy fund allocation to the MSME sector as it will trigger a job oriented growth rate. He also appreciated the steps taken around education loans, women welfare and establishment of a price stabilization fund for agricultural sector. The financial sector has to be made proactive to the infrastructure sector, he said.
At the outset Prof BS Sahay, Director, IIM Raipur welcomed the move of new IIMs and IITs being opened and said that this was a significant development in India’s education story. Pradeep Kumar, Commissioner (Central Excise, Customs & Service Tax) explained how the Union Budget would be helpful in improving India’s indirect tax collection. He said that there is confusion when the goods get classified for indirect taxes.
Kumar said that the budget tried to streamline several issues and ensured that measures are in place which will see to it that people will be paying their taxes as early as possible. Several loopholes were taken care of through policies of mandatory e-payment of excise duties and other duties.
Anurag Garg, President of Dion Global expressed his views regarding the impact of Union Budget on the growth opportunity for financial services. He said that no major reforms were announced by the government this time although it was ready to take bolder steps. There are indications that structural reforms will be brought in, thereby increasing the efficiency in the system.
Rajeev Varshney, Commissioner, Income Tax, elaborated on how the Union Budget would be helpful in improving India’s direct tax collection.He mentioned that in a growing economy for revenue mobilization, it is better that direct taxes are increased in the central revenue, and this is what has been happening. But the poor GDP has reduced the tax to GDP ratio which will have to increase to push growth. Tarun Mishra, Chief Executive Officer, Covacsis Technologies spoke on how the budget would prove to be conducive for expansion of software industry, IT enabled services and technological innovations.
He said that a good expression of interest was shown by the new government by taking previous schemes forward. The 10,000 crore for technological start-ups was appreciated. The large number of Economy experts, senior bureaucrats and industry stalwarts also who took part in the deliberation. panel discussion was moderated by Prof. Debdatta Pal.