The passage of the Finance Bill will allow formation of the six-member monetary policy committee, which will include the RBI Governor and three government nominees.
After two consecutive years of drought, finance minister Arun Jaitley said, India can grow faster if forecasts of a better monsoon hold true as that will improve agriculture and raise rural income.
While replying to a debate on the Finance Bill in Parliament, Jaitley said: “Economy, which had been expanding on strength of public investment, highest foreign direct investment (FDI) and urban demand, can grow faster if rural demand is added.”
Even though global economic outlook remains bleak, India remains the fastest growing major economy and has the potential to grow at “an even faster pace”, he added. Indian economy grew by 7.6 per cent in 2015-16 and is projected to grow by 7.5 per cent in the current year. Latest forecasts predict above-average rainfall in India after two years of drought.
After the reply, the House passed the Finance Bill that marks the culmination of the three-stage budgetary process in the Lok Sabha. The Bill will now go to Rajya Sabha.
Jaitley also ruled out rollback of 1 per cent excise on non-silver jewellery saying the levy was not applicable on small traders and artisans and only jewellers with more than Rs 12 crore turnover last year and Rs 6 crore for this year will attract the duty.
“I have not been able to understand the politics of hatred for ‘suit’ but love for gold,” he said, adding that if the Congress has objections to the levy, it can begin by removing the 5 per cent VAT on bullion in Kerala where it is the ruling party.
Jaitley also introduced amendments to the Finance Bill, 2016, for capital gains clarifying that the long-term capital gain period in case of unlisted securities has been reduced to 24 months from 36 months.
Separately, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, in a recent order to field formations, said that income arising from transfer of unlisted shares, irrespective of period of holding, would be taxable under the head capital gain. This has been done to reduce disputes and litigation as the assessing officer could earlier treat these gains as business income.
On black money, he said efforts of government have brought Rs 71,000 crore of undisclosed assets to the books. He, however, ruled out bringing agriculture income under the tax net, saying large farm-based income was rare and people using agriculture as front to hide income from other sources would be dealt with tax authorities.
Jaitley said tax notices have been sent to all the names of those holding offshore accounts that have been disclosed in the Panama papers and action will be taken against those illegally parking money abroad.
Highlighting the problem of non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks, Jaitley said, “NPA issue with banks is an issue of concern. Some loans may have been given wrongly. I am not going into who is responsible for it. But weakened business cycle due to global economy has also impacted bank balance sheets.” He added, “Hiding NPA will not resolve the problem. It should be reflected in balance sheet and addressed via capitalisation.” Jaitley said the government has drafted the amendments to the RBI Act, which will pave the way for creation of monetary policy committee, as was announced in the Budget.
The passage of the Finance Bill will allow formation of the six-member monetary policy committee, which will include the RBI Governor and three government nominees.
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