Case4-March-2013
The establishment of exclusive women bank, more
focus on women through additional fund allocation of
र 200 crore to Women and Child Welfare ministry to
address the issues of vulnerable women, 46 % more fund
allocation for rural development than the earlier budget
and more focus on water shed and dry-land agriculture
announced in the 82nd union budget for the year
2013-14 was appreciated by academicians, development
workers, Media professionals, bankers, students and
public. They also appreciated the announcement of
goods and services road map for uniform taxation and
new comprehensive social security package.
However concerns were expressed for less focus on
mitigating issues in power supply, exports, health and
education apart from no revision in income tax ceiling
limit which was widely expected by the middle class.
Surprise was expressed over setting aside र 10000 for
incremental cost for National Food Security bill, while
Kelkar committee recommended for phasing out of
subsidies.
The Budget watch and Dialogue on the Union Budget 2013-14 with development perspective was organized by Tata-Dhan Academy today at DHAN Foundation, Madurai wherein people from different sectors and students were invited to reflect and discuss on the budget and its outcomes.
The event started with the retrospective inspection of
fiscal behavior of the Indian economy in which concerns
were expressed about growing inflation and fiscal deficit
and its impacts on the poor people. Later the participants watched the Union budget 2013-14 presented by the
Honorable Finance Minister P.Chidambaram. He
admitted that faced with huge fiscal deficit, he had
no choice but to rationalize expenditure and that food
inflation is worrying even though WPI inflation was
bought down to 7 %. The planned expenditure in12th
five year plan was revised to र 14,30,825 crore from
र 16,65,297 crores. र 80,194 crore was allocated for
Ministry of rural development of which र 33,000 crores
is for MGNREGA.
Making KYC norms sufficient for getting a insurance
policy, “Nirbhaya fund” of र 1000 crores to empower
women and provide safety to them, reviewing the oil
and gas exploration policy and policy on exploration of
shale gas, concessional loans to weavers and setting up
of Indian Institute for Agricultural Biotechnology etc.,
are the other highlights of the budget. The participants
discussed over the important announcement made
in the budget and this brainstorming event had an
overwhelming response.
The event was coordinated by Mr. M.Kalayanasundram, Chief Executive officer, INAFI-India and Ms.A.Umarani, Tata-Dhan Academy. Dr.Parthiban, Professor of Agricultural economics, AC & RI, TNAU, Madurai, Dr.Muthuraja, Professor of Economics, American college, Madurai, Ms.Vidhya Suresh, Professor, Thiyagaraja School of Management, Madurai, students from Tata-Dhan Academy, AC & RI, TNAU, Madurai, SVN college, American college and Thiyagaraga school of management apart from bankers and other academicians participated in the event.