Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam said on Friday that she had learnt “a number of lessons” from Congress leader P Chidambaram’s tenure at the head of the ministry.
Responding to former finance minister Chidambaram’s criticism of the Budget that she tabled in Parliament on July 5, Sitharaman said her estimates were realistic.
Chidambaram had called the Budget weak and Sitharaman’s speech “insipid”. He said that the budget laid no clear path for high economic growth and lacked structural reform.
Sitharaman responded to the criticism at a press conference on Friday, saying that the tax projections “unachievable”.
“Excise collections will see upward swing with Rs 2 per litre increase in tax on petrol and diesel and an amnesty scheme. The GST collections are also expected to go up by over 14 percent on simplified return filing and tracking of evasion,” she said.
She said that the Centre’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code introduced in 2016 and Goods and Services Tax of 2017 were structural reforms that “the learned friend in the Congress”—Chidambaram—did not “appreciate”.
She also addressed opposition criticism over the Budget’s defence expenditure saying adequate provisions particularly for defence, pension and salary and internal security had been provided.
On rising NPAs, she claimed public sector banks have been recapitalised by Rs 3.19 lakh crore in the her government’s previous term.
“NPA problem has been comprehensively addressed by the government,” she said.
She also dismissed Chidambaram’s scepticism of the Centre’s claims that it would turn India into a USD 5 trillion economy within the next five years, saying that the goal was “achievable”. Sitharaman claimed her Budget presented a big picture, with plans to increase investment without compromising on the country’s fiscal consolidation as it moves toward the path of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25, from its current USD 2.7 trillion.
“Besides focus on agriculture, the plan includes increasing investment coming by way of further liberalisation of FDI rules, lowering of corporate tax to 25 per cent to companies with turnover of up to Rs 400 crore, tax cut on electric vehicles, widening scope of voluntary pension scheme for retail traders and shopkeepers and giving push to infrastructure development with an investment of Rs 100 lakh crore over the next five years,” she said.
The Budget’s pro-growth measures included bringing down import duties on some raw material and boosting ‘Make in India’; widening scope of cash support to farmers; and constitution of a five-member Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth under Prime Minister to help fast track decisions, she said, adding that the her government had not allowed to inflation to rise.
Keeping inflation under tight control is “a powerful tool to gauge” achievement of the government, she said.
