The people of India, as well as others interested in India, every year await eagerly for the annual budget with lot of hopes and aspirations, and most of the times end up feeling cheated and dejected. This year too it is the same story.
The 5 major stake holders for the budget are; Salaried employees, Industry, Exporters, Investors& Stockmarket, and Agriculture.This year all of them are disappointed. FM has tinkered here and there but has done nothing substantive for anyone. In the 5 budgets that he has so far presented, had he addressed one segment every year, things would have been much better than what they are today.The Finance Ministry seems to be adrift, directionless and clueless.
Study the budget and the stark realities hit you hard. Something is seriously wrong somewhere and we are in a right royal mess. Look at the figures;
Annual income of 410, 00 crores of which 42%comes from taxes and 33% comes from borrowings!
Annual income of 410, 00 crores is slightly more than the combined sales of Top 10 corporates of India which is 378, 245 crores. Isn’t it time we corporatised or privatised the Finance Ministry?
72% of the expenditure is Non-plan, and 28% is spent on interest payments. Nothing is left! The plan expenditure of 135, 00 crores is to be met from borrowings. Over 50, 00 crores of the borrowings gets spent in servicing the old borrowings!
66% of the total expenditure is revenue expenses, an euphemism for running expenses of the gargantuan establishment. Entire taxes paid by the country go to keep in comfort the establishment which does nothing except make our lives more miserable.
SEB’s lose 40, 000 crores, which is equivalent to the entire Income Tax collections. If SEB’s are made profitable, IT can be abolished.
GDP is 2.7 million crores and annual income of the Central Government is less than 15% of the GDP.
Proposed ago-credit is 75000 crores, where does it go? How much of it ever gets paid back? How much gets converted into NPA’s and is written off by loan waivers by the generous politicians to gain votes? Whose money is it anyway?
Fiscal deficit is 5% of GDP and the development expenditure also is same figure, Isn’t India a 5% economy?
Defence allocation upped to 65000 crores, how much of it really gets spent? And on what? There are many tehelkas waiting to happen, who benefits really from Defence spending? The middlemen and power brokers?
We have 60 million tons food stocks rotting away, yet millions are starving, we have so called 1.1% inflation( can anyone believe it?) yet no one is spending, there is a recession going on. We have$ 50 billion forex reserves, yet Rupee goes on sliding.
There is hardly any investment, no major projects are coming up either in public sector or in private sector. FDI inflows are a trickle of what they are to China.
Size of just three sectors: Petroleum, IT and Automobiles totals to 500, 000 crores which is 20% more than our Federal budget!
Service tax seems to be a new mantra. Do we have the administrative machinery to implement and collect the tax or is it just another weapon for the Excise offcials to harass every laundry and courier etc. to vasool the baksheesh to hatao their own garibi? What nonsense? No matter who is taxed or how, it is ultimately the common man, the consumer who bears the brunt. The poor are too poor, they have no money to pay but have votes, the rich are too influential, they know how to manipulate things to suit their ends; it is the middle class which always suffers.
Isn’t it time for us to tell the Government, please stay away, we don’t want you to do anything, you have messed up enough! Everytime you come up with grandoise plans and programs for development and poverty alleviation programs etc. the money gets swallowed up by Contractor-Bureaucrat-Politicians nexus. Not even 10% of the money spent reaches the people for whom it is meant!
We, the people would be better off if we pay Rs.5 crores each to every Central Minister, and Rs.3 crore each to every MP. The total will not even cross Rs.10, 000 crores which is lot more affordable option to shut up the politicians from meddling. Take this money and get off our backs!