Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the Budget is aimed at consolidating fiscal deficit and will meet the challenges of the country’s economic growth.
Regarding the black money issue — the FM had been expected to announce an amnesty scheme but didn’t — the PM said that similar schemes in the past have yielded little results.
“I don’t think they have succeeded in providing a permanent cure for black money. We need to have a system’s reform in a holistic manner to deal with this menace.” The PM made these remarks in an interview that he gave to Doordarshan post the Budget presentation on Monday.
As for the disappointment being felt among earning womenfolk on there being no announcement for raising the income-tax exemption limits for them, he replied: “Well you can’t please all people. And the finance minister has done as good a job as was possible. The fact that he has increased the exemption limit for people at the lowest rung of the ladder from `1,60,000 to `1,80,000 will benefit all men and women and for older citizens he has done much more.”
On the issue of growth, the PM said: “We need to sustain a high rate of growth and therefore this budget builds upon the good performance of the current fiscal year’s 8.6 per cent growth rate to a projected 9 per cent growth rate for which adequate provisions have been made particularly in the area of infrastructure and in social sector plus agricultural development. It is certainly necessary to curb inflationary expectation for which it is very essential that there should a path of fiscal consolidation.” The PM also patted the FM on the back saying that he “has done a commendable job by planning to reduce the fiscal deficit”.