Budget 2012 likely to focus more on economic reforms

16 Mar 2012 Evaluate

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will present his seventh Budget today. It is being widely seen as his last chance to ‘bite the bullet’ and push for economic reforms as the UPA government goes in for general elections next year. Markets are of the opinion that sentiment can be boosted if the FM shows a definite resolve to control the fiscal deficit. The budget is likely to focus on following key areas:

It is expected that some action could be seen on the excise front. The FM is likely to increase the excise duty from the current levels of 10% to 12%. But will it be an across-the-board hike or a hike on selective items like diesel cars, which will have to be looked out for.

The Budget is also likely to be positive for investors, especially for new investors. The government may introduce the Rajiv Gandhi Equity Scheme, which will give incentives for new investors. There also could be an increase in the limit for tax free infra bonds from Rs 30,000 last year to Rs 50,000. These are issued by NHAI, Indian Railway Finance Corporation etc.

A negative list for service tax in all probability is likely to be introduced and the tax itself could be increased from 10% to 12% for all items not featuring in the negative list. Additional services could also come under the ambit of the service tax.

The FM could earn himself a lot of points if is able to put out measures to control the weighty bill of subsidies. This could be done by way of hiking prices of petroleum products, rationalizing fertilizer subsidies by decontrolling urea prices and putting in place a targeted food subsidy distribution mechanism via Unique Identification (UID). Also greater efforts to increase government revenue would be appreciated.

Economic reforms whose fate has been hanging in the political balance could get a boost by fast tracking policies such as Mining Bill and Land Acquisition Bill. Also FDI in multi-brand retail, aviation, insurance is likely to be allowed in the budget.

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