A large number of officials and support staff, who are directly associated with the Budget making and printing process, are now required to stay in the ministry and remain cut off from their families till the presentation of the Budget in the Lok Sabha.
The government on Friday sought Parliament's nod for an additional Rs 54,000-crore spending mainly to meet its obligation towards GST compensation to states and defence-related expenditure. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur presented the second and final batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha.
She said I treated her like a bachchi. At another moment, she said I had gone to various people and 'bitched' about her. She also threatened to bring the entire matter to the PM's notice. A revealing excerpt from Subhash Chandra Garg's We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.
The government has only taken a pause and more measures will be announced in the days to come to help sectors hit by the coronavirus outbreak and also to make India 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur said. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the government has taken several steps to mitigate the hardships of the people due to lockdown and support growth, Thakur told PTI in an interview.
The impact of economic slump was visible in the Budget's fine print, as this step-by-step explanation show how the Budget math was worked out, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
He was diagnosed with three blocked coronary arteries, following which a stent was inserted in one to remove the blockage.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday reviewed with Infosys officials the technical glitches that continue to mar the new income tax e-filing portal. Sitharaman, along with Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj, CBDT chairman Jagannath Mohapatra and other senior ministry officials, went point by point on the issues facing the new portal with officials of Infosys - the vendor which developed the site. While there was no official word on what transpired at the meeting, a statement issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) said "the technical glitches shall be addressed fast". ICAI representatives attended the meeting on Tuesday.
"The PMJDY has been the foundation stone for the Modi government's people-centric economic initiatives. "Whether it is direct benefit transfers, Covid-19 financial assistance, PM-KISAN, increased wages under MGNREGA, life and health insurance cover, the first step was to provide every adult with a bank account, which PMJDY has nearly completed," Nirmala Sitharaman said on the sixth anniversary of the scheme.
The move to resume work in ministries comes nearly a month after the government issued work from home protocols in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Operationalising the ban is being fleshed out: it will entail which cryptocurrencies will be banned and how.
Later, there may be some tax relief aimed at the middle class and measures to benefit the sectors worst hit by Covid-19 and the resultant nationwide lockdown.
Former RBI governors Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan have also expressed worry about the Mudra scheme, particularly government's target-setting practice and the rising bad loans.
As part of the ritual, ''halwa'' is prepared in a big ''kadhai'' (large frying pot) and served to the entire staff involved in the Budget making exercise of the ministry. Halwa was served while maintaining COVID protocol with all present in mask and those distributing sweets were wearing gloves.
The protests came after Speaker Om Birla announced the end of Question Hour at noon as the designated time for it is 11 am to noon. While asking the first supplementary, Gandhi said he wanted to know the list of 50 top wilful defaulters, including funds given and the amount written off by banks but did not get a proper answer in the written reply.
During the meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, it was also suggested that employees' provident fund should increase its exposure in the stock market, which in turn would improve liquidity.
Senior Congress leaders Anand Sharma, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kapil Sibbal, Raj Babbar, Vivek Tankha, Ghulam Nabi Azad will address an event in Jammu on Saturday which Manish Tiwari is also expected to join.
Bharat Krishak Samaj demanded that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana should be replaced with a new crop insurance and compensation scheme.
While experts pointed out the impact of corporation tax cuts cannot yet figure in collections as most companies are yet to decide on their choice, government officials said a part reason for slow collection is the tax cut.
Among the names being mentioned for inclusion as ministers are Tejasvi Surya, the 29-year-old MP from Bangalore South, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, the 35-year-old MP from Ladakh, Locket Chatterjee, the 45-year old MP from Hooghly, and Dilip Ghosh, MP from West Medinipur and president of the BJP's West Bengal unit.
'In both cases, there is a sneering disregard for the established processes of law while dealing with what the American president and the junior Indian minister regard as unpardonable behaviour,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Bitcoin has been on fire ever since Musk announced that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency, and that his electric-vehicle company would accept bitcoin from buyers.
Listing of LIC will help bring in greater transparency, public participation and also deepen the equity market.
The bonds will likely be simultaneously launched in major financial centres such as London, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York for a term of no less than 20 years.
Participating in the debate on the budget, leaders of parties like the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Left launched an all-out attack on the BJP government for allegedly selling off the country's assets and PSUs to big industrialists.
The NDA government will be following the footsteps of its predecessor, the UPA, which had introduced the concept of "loan mela" to boost credit by directing banks to lend to people through public meetings.
An official said that people in the government were aware of the benefits as well as the drawbacks of issuing overseas sovereign bonds, and there will be consultations with all stakeholders.
The government has set a target of adding 1.3 crore income tax filers in the current financial year against 1.1 crore new filers added last year.
Facing a deepening slowdown, the auto sector is pinning hopes on the GST Council meeting on September 20 for a rate cut from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. However, states including Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, and Punjab are of the view that the slowdown in the auto sector is not because of the GST rate but structural issues in the economy.
Bad loans of PSBs are at Rs 20 trillion. Most of it is, I sense, due to corruption and behest lending. Nobody pays a price for this charade. Not the promoters, the bankers, RBI officials, finance ministry bureaucrats or politicians, points out Debashis Basu.
'The fiscal situation is stressed (when is it not?!), economic growth has slowed, tax revenue has fallen short and the deficit is high if it is properly accounted,' points out T N Ninan.
Joshi said the Congress is 'led by an infiltrator' and is targeting Modi who hails from a humble family and is a popular leader.
'Two esteemed foreign investors with huge funds are coming with us in our real estate and city development businesses.'
No one was injured in the incident that came even as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during a poll rally in Delhi's northwest Rohini area alleged that those who support terrorists in Kashmir are staging protest at Shaheen Bagh.
'I have stopped going to college and instead come here to protest.' 'What is the point of going to college when you are unsure about your citizenship?' 'I am here to protest and save my future.'
'A bold, progressive step forward,' Kotak Mahindra Bank CEO Uday Kotak said of Nirmala Sitharaman's corporate tax breaks.
'A buoyant market economy is one which is led by the innovation and imagination of private persons,' notes Ajay Shah.
'Our people are crazy about cricket, but they are more crazy about their country, and their armed forces.' 'To the people of India, there is nothing that is above the nation, not even cricket.'
'One by one we are seeing these private banks taking people's money and mismanaging it.' 'In the last 30 years, 30 private banks have collapsed.' 'Nationalise all banks so that people's money is safe.'
'If some measures are implemented quickly, they can help revive growth.'
'We are looking at the Budget with the hope that it will address all issues even at the cost of exceeding the fiscal deficit target.'
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