Budget sets agenda for continuity: Sitharaman

Bengaluru: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the Union Budget for 2022-23, which she had presented, stands for continuity to provide a tax predictable regime and a vision for the next 25 years. She added that the budget also makes sure that the country is adequately endowed to celebrate when it attains 100 years of independence.

“This budget stands more for continuity, to provide a tax predictable regime and also to make sure that we are planning for the next 20 to 25 years. It gives a vision and also some kind of roadmap through which we want to achieve fundamental infrastructure, which will help us to be proud of ourselves,” Sitharaman said during the budget outreach programme where she interacted with industry and took their feedback and grievances. According to Sitharaman, the budget brought in a lot of technology and digitisation of the economy.

Underlining that the country is still coming out of the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, the Union minister said the nation needs to have a support system particularly for health, which is completely stabilised and strengthened. She also stressed that there was a need for “waking up for the children who have lost out on two years of education and bridging the gaps”

Sitharaman pointed out that the budget is also about making sure that states have a participatory role in whatever the Centre is doing, so that the funds are being shared with them and they can actively engage in infrastructure building as well.

“Broader principles of getting the synergy out of all the investments being made both by the Centre and the states for infrastructure, so that the multiplier effect is really going to benefit and the investments going to have synergistic effects,” the Minister said.

Stating that each one of the investments doesn’t stand alone in a silo, Sitharaman told the gathering that the Centre brought in the principle of PM Gati Shakti, which will be like an umbrellalike scheme over the several projects that are aimed at mutual benefit for the industry.

The synergy of the various investments which are happening in different areas, whether they are ports or roads or bridges or trains will have to fall into each other’s domain and give us a collective strength (under Gati Shakti project),” the Finance Minister said.

Raps tax officials
She came down heavily on the tax boards for allegedly not responding to grievances of the tax assessees and directed their officials to reserve Saturdays to hold meetings with them.

During the Budget Outreach Programme, the Chief Financial Officer of the Karnataka Bank, Muralidhar Krishna Rao, posed a question seeking clarity on certain provisions of the GST Act and the direct tax deductions impacting the banking sector.

Even before the officials responded, Sitharaman intervened and pulled up the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) officials.

“I’m very curious to know if the CBIC and CBDT are here. Are you all engaging with your own assessees? The questions which are being asked here are not those questions where I want the secretaries of the Ministry of Finance to sit here and explain,” Sitharaman said.

“I would now tell the CBDT and the CBIC to please keep your Saturday’s free, engage with assessees and give them all the clarification required,” she added. PTI