A Budget that was ‘Bharat’ for first 93 paras and then ‘India’ all the way
Mumbai: In keeping with his Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s philosophy of ‘less government, more governance’, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely opened the gates for greater participation of the private sector and foreign investment in Budget 2014.
To an extent, it is a break from the pre-1991 past, though it does look more like a continuity of the UPA 2 policies particularly on FDI and public private partnership.
But the NDA will be more efficient in implementation. Also, he is completing some of their unfinished tasks like setting up of a technology development fund that they only talked about.
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What is amazing is that Mr Jaitley is using Public Sector Units to kickstart the investment cycle to help growth and play their role constructively. He said: “I am assured the PSUs will invest through capital investment a sum of Rs 2,47,941 crore in the current financial year to create a virtuous investment cycle.”
In a way, he has outdone his predecessor P Chidambaram who wanted PSU money through higher and special dividends to cover the fiscal deficit.
Mr Jaitley however did not disappoint anyone as he meticulously mentioned every section from women and children to the disabled, the visually impaired, the police, martyrs, students. The list was endless.
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In fact, he sounded like Mother Teresa in the first 93 paragraphs of his speech that was dedicated to schemes for women children, farmers, landless, education, health etc., much to the chagrin of the Sensex.
It plummeted over 400 points until he came to the portion concerning industry, finance, capital markets, raising the cap in FDI in defence and insurance and tax incentives for manufacturing, infrastructure, smart cities, PPP in all new infrastructure projects etc. This much for the divide between India and Bharat!
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Mr Jaitely did a terrific job given the context within which he had to frame his maiden budget -- shortage of time and financial dire straits.
He had his ears to the ground and for instance provided investment allowance of 15 per cent to manufacturing companies that invest more than Rs 25 crore in any year in new plant and machinery.
He promised to review the definition of medium, small and micro enterprises that have been a long-standing demand.
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He has announced a conducive tax regime for setting up an Infrastructure Investment Trust and Real Investment Trusts so they can attract largescale investments in infrastructure and construction sectors.
And now to the implementation of this well thought-out budget.
