Economy »
Global rating agency Standard & Poor's on Thursday said the Union Budget for fiscal year 2013-14 will have no impact on the country's sovereign credit rating.
The Union Budget for 2013-14 put a dampener on Mumbai's multi-billion dollar makeover plan and the state Congress-led government's hope of getting some sops before the 2014 polls.
Conceding to repeated demands from heartland states for additional financial assistance, finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday declared his intention of reframing the definition of backward regions, in a way that is likely to help politically critical states like Bihar and areas such as Bundelkhand.
C
Finance minister P Chidambaram’s pledged to stick to the 2014 deadline for a nationwide rollout of direct benefits transfer, pushing the banking sector to move beyond tokenism and cover more than seven crore households over the next 12 months.
A scheme flush with funds but a sagging demand seems to have found its rightful allocation in the budget. The UPA’s flagship aam admi scheme MGNREGA is provided Rs. 33, 000 crore for 2013-14 — same as it was in the last year’s budget.
The urban poor and middle-class got a little more attention and funding from finance minister P Chidambaram in the 2013-14 Union Budget.
India's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.5% by the during the October to December quarter in 2012 as the economy appeared on track to record its worst growth in a decade — factories are producing less, exports are shrinking and companies offering fewer jobs.
Finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday unveiled plans to reduce India's fiscal deficit to 3% of GDP in five years demonstrating the government's intent to walk the talk on fiscal discipline.
Two of India's biggest tax reform initiatives — the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — has entered the final leg, finance minister P Chidambaram said on Thursday.
With gold prices on the rise, the government on Thursday proposed to raise the limit on duty-free import of jewellery via passenger baggage to Rs. 50,000 for men and Rs. 1 lakh for women.
The government has set a target of Rs. 55,814 crore that it expects to earn by selling equity in state-owned companies in 2013-14 as the stage appears set to press the accelerator on the disinvestment programme.
Seeking to remove ambiguity on the distinction between foreign direct investment and foreign institutional investment, the government has proposed to follow international practices for differentiating them.
Its official. Aiming to provide some relief to foreign investors while improving investor sentiment on inflows into India, finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said the modified version of the General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR) — originally announced in the budget last year — would come into effect only from April 2016.
In a bid to increase the penetration of insurance products in semi-urban and rural areas, the finance minister announced various measures, such as allowing banks to act as brokers for the products of insurance companies, and permitting banking correspondents to sell micro-insurance products.
Finance minister P Chidambaram, who had to do a strict balancing act of generating revenue on the one hand and offer sops to revive the investment climate on the other, proposed to increase the surcharge from 5% to 10% on taxable incomes of more than Rs. 10 crore per year earned by domestic firms.