News

            UNION Budget for 2010-11, presented by the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, in parliament last week, placed the total expenditure at Rs 11,08,749 crore, marking a rise of 8.6 per cent over last year. Of the total expenditure, the plan expenditure, at Rs 3,73,092 crore, increased by 15 per cent and non-plan expenditure, at Rs 7,35,657 crore, by 6 per cent over the current year (2009-10).

           Fiscal deficit, at Rs 3,81,408 crore, would work out to 5.5 per cent of GDP for2010-11 and 4.1 per cent for 2012.13.

          Against a fiscal deficit of 7.8 per cent in 2008-09, inclusive of oil and fertiliser bonds, the comparable fiscal deficit for the current fiscal is 6.9 per cent.

         Net market borrowing would be of the order of Rs 3,45,010 crore, leaving enough space to meet credit needs of the private sector.

        The government has promised to bring out a status paper, giving roadmap for curtailing the overall public debt, within six months, Accordingly, the public debt-GDP ratio would be brought down from the present 78 per cent to 68 per cent by 2014 -15.

     Gross tax receipts are estimated at Rs 7,46,651 crore and non-tax receipts at Rs 1,48,118 crore for the next fiscal.

                   INFRASTRUCTURE GETS 46 PC OF TOTAL ALLOCATION

            In the Union Budget for 2010-11 infrastructure development got an allocation of Rs 1,73,552 crore, amounting to 46 per cent of total plan allocation. Allocation of power sector more than doubled to Rs 5,130 crore, Spending on Social sector, at Rs 1,37,674 crore, will account for 37 per cent of total plan outlay.

                     SERVICE TAX RETAINED AT 10 PC

         While the Finance Minister did not raise the service tax rate of 10 per cent, certain new services were brought within the service tax purview. Central excise duty, which had been reduced last year as per of a stimulus package, have now been raised on non-petro products across-the board by 2 percentage points to 10 per cent.

        Central excise on petrol and diesel has been raised by rupee one per litre. While the Finance Minister has raised Rs 46,500 crore from changes in indirect tax proposals, there would be a revenue loss of Rs 26,000 crore on account of chages in direct tax proposals.

                  Core sector growth up at 5.4 pc this year

        The index of six core industries (1993-94=100) recorded a rise of 9.4 per cent in January 2010 year-on-year (as against 2.2 per cent in January 2009). While growth rate of production in crude oil (9.7 per cent against minus 8.1 per cent last year), petroleum refinery products (3.8 per cent against minus 1.3 per cent in January 2009),  electricity generation (5.6 per cent against 1.8 per cent ), cement production (12.4 per cent against 8.3 per cent ) and finished steel (16.2 per cent against 3.2 per cent) in January 2010 was higher than that for last year: growth rate for coal production in January 2010, at 6.0 per cent, was lower than last year’s 6.7 per cent.