Dinesh Narayanan
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In India, the government is following a borrow-to-grow strategy but the RBI, while helping keep the government’s borrowing cost low, is geared to keep inflation under control. The contradictory impulses would be tough to balance.
“Our customs duty policy should have the twin objectives of promoting domestic manufacturing and helping India get onto global value chain and export better,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech. “The thrust now has to be on easy access to raw materials and exports of value-added products.”
Companies’ performance, which will lead to more hiring, depends on revival of the domestic and international markets. And that rests on job creation and income restoration. Can the scheme kick-start that cycle?
The recommendation is just a percentage point short of the 42% level suggested by the 14th Finance Commission. The snip reflects the change in the status of Jammu and Kashmir from state to union territory.
The final report of the FFC, due October 30, may recommend that the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM) and state-level fiscal responsibility legislations, which give the Centre and states specific targets and caps deficits, be suspended. It may suggest the setting up of a fiscal reforms panel to design a new framework.
ET learns from multiple sources that the FFC, which is scheduled to submit by the end of October its report and recommendation on how union and state governments should share tax revenues for five years beginning 2021, is likely to suggest monetisation of land and sequestering a portion of import duties for the fund.
Potential employers searched from 55 towns — this was also earlier limited to larger cities. Queries came from places as diverse as Jalandhar, Jaunpur, Ajmer and Rajkot. Even factory owners signed up to search for unskilled or semi-skilled workers. While this showed that the blue-collared jobseekers in small towns were tech-savvy, the alarming trend was the widespread desperation for employment in an economy besieged by a pandemic-induced crisis.
Three decades of liberalisation and attempts to transform into an industrial nation notwithstanding, India remains an economy largely dependent on monsoons and agriculture. Nearly 60% of its population still lives off farms and allied activities. Good prices for farm produce means higher incomes in rural India, consumer durables and discretionary goods.
An industry representative said that on one hand, casual workers in some areas are desperate enough to work at wages lower than that six months ago, while on the other, absenteeism is on the rise among those holding down regular jobs.
Five months after it began relentlessly chasing the virus, Kerala’s healthcare has reached a delicate pass.
A liberal ownership would increase the prospects of better bids for the assets put up for sale.
Villages now struggle to cope with returnees who have no income and no immediate chance of employment.
The Kerala task force report points out how China effectively used traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in tandem with modern medicine to prevent the spread of Covid-19 outside its Wuhan province, the epicentre of the global pandemic.
The industry body’s `Exit from Lockdown’ strategy envisages the ramp up for returning employees from 50% to 75% to 100% over a period of time and restart to begin with locations which have a lower incidence of the outbreak, followed by the ones with moderate impact.
A crisis is also a great opportunity to push through behavioural changes that are difficult to incentivise otherwise. People, for instance, ignore health advice to wear face masks to protect themselves from severe air pollution. But the virus has managed even the most intransigent of them to cover their faces.
The sudden displacement of migrant labour would have far-reaching impact on the Indian economy.
f the shutdown prolongs, those who have returned home would be under pressure to earn. With few livelihood options in villages, they would want to return to the cities again. As states began enforcing lockdowns and public transport and inter-state travel halted, lakhs of workers are stranded in cities where shops are shut and essential services are badly hit
Data void in the Q1 of the calendar year threatens to impact govt policymaking and corporate decisions.
The 15th Finance Commission was told by the centre to reduce states' share of tax revenue. The centre believes states have not been efficient using more untied funds devolved after the 14th FC award. “The performance of the states makes it clear that central intervention is required to achieve the goals of national priorities,” it said in its memorandum.
India's tax collection shortfall could range between Rs 2.16 lakh cr in 2020-21 to Rs 3.70 lakh cr in 2024-25
NK Singh-headed Finance Commission working on proposal; cabinet cleared enabling approvals on July 17.
India’s deficit numbers have come under lens as the govt is increasingly depending on off-budget borrowings.
Although government debt levels are not unmanageable, the high-risk strategy could itself fuel price rise as interest costs are rising and revenues are not keeping pace.
The middle class in India is currently responsible for the seeming calm in the economy but it is now bearing a disproportionately large burden.
Cities account for 63% of India’s GDP but all the major growth centres are in the west or south.
While political parties have often used loan waiver as a potent vote-netter, its impact on public finances is almost always disastrous.
The government is hoping an economic revival in the next fiscal year, but that will happen only if the demonetisation effect is indeed short term.
Poor people who receive government subsidies for building homes and toilets are worried about their changed living conditions.
The new government e-commerce portal could generate savings at least equivalent to half of the MGNREGA budget for 2016-17.
Aadhaar forms the backbone of the current government’s JAM (Jan Dhan frills-free bank accounts, Aadhaar, Mobile phones for transactions.
Although conceived as a welfare programme to fight rural joblessness during the lean farming season, it was also meant to help in drought-proofing.
Based on the SECC data, the ministry began participatory planning under Mission Antyodaya beginning with the Gram Sabhas or village committees as the basic unit.
After two years of trying to drive investment in manufacturing and services, the government returned to tend to rural India, the battered core of the economy.
A slowing US housing market would have important implications for world economy, says an IMF report.
