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The following proposals / allocations will hurt the citizens:
1. taxing life insurance service providers. This is a 'pass on' and our under insured will pay more and more.
2. taxing AC hospitals, when quality health care needs air conditioning. We are still in the mindset that AC is a luxury ... with our dusty and polluted air, AC is a necessity and improves efficiency of service providers and the clients. Why should health care be taxed in any way?
3. excise duty on 'branded garments' ... now the small town guy who puts his own label to improve his reach will pay more. This is ridiculous. Do we want to improve production or imports? All China goods carry some brand mark, so will there be special import imposition on all of those?
4. token excise duty of 1% on 130 new items ... just to collect statistics, a costly method I will say. The Govt must use other on line filing methods without creating work for clerks.
5. Micro-irrigation equipment has its duty reduced but not brought to full exemption, yet the Govt. talks of spending on agriculture. Here is a clear case of double speak.
6. reduction in duties on downstream crude oil products would have helped control inflation; yet this is not done. Why heavily tax transport inputs, this adds to cost and not to value. How can India compete and double its exports in five years?
7. if we have difficulty in mining coal, gypsum, etc because of forest lands, adivasi lands and environ. concerns; at least eliminate import duties on same to allow power, cement, infrastructure to get benefit of lower inputs. Why just token reduction?
8. as usual, focus is on stock market, not long term reforms. So, FII investing in Mutual Funds is a big plus for the market; yet FDI for infrastructure is not clear, FDI in manufacturing is not easy.
9. a simple solution of pulling back Rs. 1000 currency notes to control corruption and black money is missed. USA did it during Nixon's time and the Mafia lost ground.
These are the errors of commissions and omissions which would otherwise, have made this Finance Bill tolerable.
The focus of the Finance Bill should be only on irrigation (small local dams and micro-irrigation), low agri-interest rates, cheaper produce storage and transport corridors and coaching for employable skills. Taxes and Duties on processed foods should be removed, to encourage production and consumption. Food Security is needless if above are made robust.
The dangers of an imported Second Green Revolution should be clear in that focus should be on fine tuning existing technology rather than handing over research control to foreign Corporates and sourcing so called better seeds from foreign Corporates. If the existing skill sets and tools with the farmers are improved there will be no need for Corporates to move in. The meek surrender of the nations assets and resources to Global Corporates who focus on financial gains by any means must be avoided.
Next on priority should be meaningful education with emphasis on 'values education', robust health care and continuous electric power. All other social spending should be reduced to accommodate the above. NREGA is useless if employable skills and power are not provided, we are perpetuating beggary and needless immigration to urban areas.
Finally, India needs to review its taxation process entirely. The ArthaKranti Prathisthan proposes 'bank transaction tax' and currency compression. We must have public debate and prepare a doctrine. India has the skill set for this and can lead the world in this sphere.
All the above taken together will lead to eleven plus economic growth rate with a human face and drastically reduce the current social problems that India and the world face. Unfortunately, the above are not fully addressed this time.
