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Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden Budget has stuck to the path laid out in the interim Budget and the mantra of ‘‘unfettered sky blue” thinking in economic survey presented on Thursday.
As she laid down the road map to turn into a $ 5 trillion economy by 2024-25, middle-class was left wanting for more.
A large plank of the strategy to achieve this milestone is set to be achieved through unshackling investments and further opening up of the economy in terms of promised increase in FDI in aviation, insurance and media sectors.
Read more:Govt proposes FDI norm relaxation in media, aviation, insurance, single brand retail
She also proposed to bring about large scale reforms in capital markets such as higher minimum public shareholding in listed entities to 35 per cent from 25 per cent now, providing more investment limit to foreign portfolio investors (FPI) in listed entities and ushering in debt market reforms of deepening the corporate bondmarkets.
Asserting that India would become a $ 3 trillion economy in the current fiscal itself, Nirmala outlined the various measures that Government proposes to take to ramp up infrastructure in seaways, roads, airports and payment infrastructure to realise the vision of $ 5 trillion economy.
Besides Rs 70,000 crore capital support to public sector banks, the Finance Minister also announced support to cash strapped Non Banking Finance Companies through partial guarantee to banks buying the stressed assets of NBFCs. She also announced a massive Rs 1.05 lakh crore disinvestment target.
Read more:FM announces bank recapitalisation of Rs 70,000 cr for PSBs
She also proposed to raise the annual turnover limit from Rs 250 crore to Rs 400 crore for availing a lower corporate tax rate of 25 per cent. The proposal would cover 99.3 per cent of the companies operating in the country, she said. Only 0.7 per cent of the companies will now remain outside the 25 per cent corporate tax bracket, Sitharaman added. Currently, the corporate tax rate for domestic companies is pegged at 30 per cent.
Also read:Corporate tax lowered to 25% for firms with turnover of Rs 400 cr
When looking at her sources of revenue her targets were gold and crude. “Crude prices have softened from their highs. This gives me a room to review excise duty and cess on petrol and diesel. I propose to increase Special Additional Excise duty and Road and Infrastructure Cess each by one rupee a litre on petrol and diesel. It is also proposed to increase custom duty on gold and other precious metals from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent,” she said.
Read more:Cess on petrol, diesel hiked by Re 1/litre; customs duty on gold increased
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