FM's solution to fiscal deficit: Earn now, spend next year | Business Standard
FM's solution to fiscal deficit: Earn now, spend next year | Business Standard
Online comments posted on January 15, 2014:
Online comments posted on January 15, 2014:
Sometime back, this paper had
reported finance ministry’s pressure on CBDT to go slow on ‘huge’ refunds of
income-tax and about GOI demand for higher dividends and ‘surplus income
transfers’ to government by PSUs and statutory organizations. During the
current financial year, such persuasion has resulted in an all-time high
transfer of ‘surplus income’ from RBI and declaration of special dividend by
Coal India(these are only two examples, but together accounted for about
two-thirds of Rs73,866 crore expected under Dividends & profits in B.
E 2013-14.
The finance ministry’s financial
jugglery to show better ‘results’ go much beyond the ‘beg, borrow or steal’
approach. The present arm-twisting tactics cannot even be considered as ‘book
adjustments’ or ‘window-dressing’, practices bad in themselves and objected to
when financial institutions engage in them.
One wonders, how the health of
the Indian Economy will get a better health certificate by accepting advance
payments and postponing payments which have become due(both in essence
tantamount to unsecured borrowing, if viewed in a wider sense).
Finance Ministry has successfully
withheld a pension revision in RBI for the last 15 years, arguing ‘cascading
effect’ on banking industry, though RBI has a fully funded pension payment
arrangement. Meanwhile, GOI has revised central government pension twice, though
the payment is under Pay-As-You-Go system without any provision for funding.
NPS, which in effect is ‘No Pension System’ has been introduced to deny pension
benefits to new entrants from 2004. Mentioned this to highlight that GOI
indulges not only in accounting jugglery, but policy jugglery having long term
implications on the lives of workers also.
M G Warrier, Thiruvananthapuram
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