The Hindu Business Line : After 15 minutes or so to agriculture...

Kural 1036 it was that we heard this time from the Finance Minister: "Uzhavinar kai madangin illai vizhaivathoom vittame enbarkum nilai." Meaning, "If ploughmen keep their hands folded even sages claiming renunciation cannot find salvation," as he paraphrases in paragraph 65 of the Budget Speech.

There is little to read between the lines of this 2000-year-old couplet, as a clue to what Chiddu has in mind. For, politicians are no sages, nor do they claim renunciation; also, rarely do they keep their hands folded. The context is tenuous, you'd agree; but in a 13,000-word presentation one can excuse the reference to the couplet, as a respite to the Minister after he had devoted `15 minutes or so to agriculture'.

And it is supposed to be a caution, because `Saint Tiruvalluvar watches over us and warns' that it would be inexcusable not `to deliver the intended outcomes' when `there is no dearth of' schemes and funds.'

Land, an angry wife

To the Tamil avid, there is more in the chapter 104, `agriculture', which precedes the chapter on `poverty'. For instance the 1031 couplet of the 1330 work says, "Agriculture, though laborious, is the most excellent (form of labour); for people, though they go about (in search of various employments), have at last to resort to the farmer."

Not a popular one, these days, with productivity in agriculture much lower than in manufacturing and services. Kural 1039, as http://tamils.tamilpower.com translates, is, "If the owner does not (personally) attend to his cultivation, his land will behave like an angry wife and yield him no pleasure."

Alphabet soup of schemes

There is no dearth of schemes in any Budget. This year we had 42 occurrences of `scheme' in the Speech, beginning with Mid-day Meal Scheme and ending with an `optional composition scheme' for service tax. Schemes include: National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme, NREGS or National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, `a scheme for induction of high-yielding milch animals', NAIS or National Agricultural Insurance Scheme, `a new scheme' called AABY or Aam Admi Bima Yojana, `viability gap funding scheme', TUF (Technology Upgradation Fund) Scheme, and DRI (Differential Rate of Interest) Scheme.

`Across country' to `a cross-country'

In the `Finance Bill' section of http://indiabudget.nic.in, the first document to download is `Corrigenda'.

It begins with `dependent' for `dependant'; then, for `substituted' substitute `inserted', insert `of' after `set off', and split `across country' as `a cross-country'. Good fun.

Services cross a hundred

The 99 services already on the statute book would `welcome the new assessees', of whom `renting of immovable property for use in the course of furtherance of business or commerce', gets a sleepy number, sub-clause (zzzz).

Then come: (zzzza) to cover works contract, excluding works contract in respect of roads, airports, railways, transport terminals, bridges, tunnels and dams; (zzzzb) about development and supply of content for use in telecommunication services, advertising agency services and online information and database access or retrieval services; and two more, relating to asset management including portfolio management and all forms of fund management; and design services.

Definitions should be of interest. Such as, of `development and supply of content'. It includes "development and supply of mobile value added services, music, movie clips, ring tones, wallpaper, mobile games, data, whether or not aggregated, information, news and animation films."

Revenue foregone

An important document among the Budget papers is one on `Revenue foregone'. It starts by explaining that the main objective of any tax system is to raise revenues to fund Government expenditures.

"The amount of revenue raised is determined to a large extent by tax bases and tax rates. It is also a function of a range of measures - special tax rates, exemptions, deductions, rebates, deferrals and credits - that affect the level and distribution of tax. These measures are sometimes called `tax preferences'."

The phrase does not mean that paying tax is a matter of preference. "Tax preferences may be viewed as subsidy payments to preferred taxpayers. Such implicit payments are referred to as `tax expenditures' and it is often argued that they should appear as expenditure items in the Budget... " elaborates the 20-page document.

Tailpiece

"Have you seen the aam aadmi, everybody talks about on the TV?"

"You mean the mango vendor?"

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