LS approves demands for grants for 2016-17; FM says challenge for govt. is to protect economy from global slowdown
14 March, New Delhi
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday said, the current challenge before the government is how to create a firewall to protect the country’s economy from the impact of global slowdown. He said, despite global slowdown, the country has maintained its economic growth and this year it stood at the level of 7.6 per cent. Replying to the debate on the General Budget 2016-17 in the Lok Sabha, Mr Jaitley said, the government has given a focussed push to those sectors which have shrunk in previous year in view of various reasons.He said the government has increased the allocation in various sectors including rural, infrastructure and agriculture sector. He said, the government has made a budgetary provision of 27000 crore rupees for rural sector.
Mr Jaitley informed the House that government will set up a irrigation fund amounting to twenty thousand crore rupees to facilitate irrigation in drought prone areas. He however said, despite deficient rainfall of 13 per cent in the two consecutive years , the country has surplus food stock . Terming the budget as realistic and growth oriented, Mr Jaitley said, the government has managed to keep inflation under control and for the straight 16 months the Wholesale Price Index is in the negative zone . He also said, the Consumer Price Index has come down and country’s forex reserve is good.
Responding to members’ concern of levying of one per cent excise duty on jewelleries, the Finance Minister said, it will apply to principal traders whose turnover during the past have been over 12 crore rupees and 6 core rupees in next year. He clarified that the duty will not apply to jewellery makers. He also said that the duty will be payable on the basis of self-certification.
Mr Jaitley said, this is next step towards GST as gold will be covered under it. On member’s demand for hike in MPLAD fund , the Finance Minister said , the government will consider it. He also assured the House that the government will fulfil the commitments made to Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
The Minister expressed hope that during second part of the budget session, the bankruptcy code bill will be passed which will help banks to address the Non-Performing Assets . Later, the House approved demands for grants for 2016-17 alongwith supplementary demands for grants .
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today took a jibe at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s recent ‘Fair and Lovely Yojana’ comment, saying it was politically incorrect. He said, he will “pass off the comments as ignorance.”
Replying on the budget debate in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Jaitley defended his policy, saying his scheme to let people pay no penalty, interest on pending tax disputes, was neither an amnesty nor a Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme.
Earlier this month, Mr. Gandhi said the present National Democratic Alliance government has “launched a Fair and Lovely Yojana, to convert black money to white money”.