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| FM to bring innovation | | Populism is compulsion of last budget | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Nov 27
With just a month and half left for the presentation of last budget of the present coalition government, the Finance Minister Tariq Hamid Qarra is reportedly looking for innovation as he prepares for populist presentation.
The office of the Finance Minister on the third floor in civil secretariat is these days almost out of bounds for the routine visitors as Qarra is engrossed in the formulations. The Financial Commissioner Planning and Development and Commissioner Secretary
Finance too are also not seeing the routine file these days.
While sources indicated the possibility of a Vote on Account but if this is a full fledged budget then it is going to be severe test of efficiency and political acumen of the Finance Minister.
This is going to be the last budget of the present coalition government and expected to cast a lot of impact on the forthcoming elections. In first few years, the then Finance Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig had presented a tax free and zero deficit budget. When
Tariq Hamid Qarra took over, he too came up with a zero deficit but some taxes were imposed. Particularly, for the first time huge taxes were imposed on service taxes.
Experts believe that imposing fresh taxes, hiking the existing ones or tightening noose around the tax paying system may be suicidal not only for the career of the Finance Minister, his party Peoples Democratic Party but also for entire coalition government. "Leave aside the imposition of fresh taxes, the Finance Minister will have to come up
with populist measures to placate the general people", said an expert.
Meanwhile, after preliminary paper work, discussion within the department and at the government level, the Finance Minister all set to kick off the pre-budget meetings with economists, industrialists, traders and other people. A meeting with the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been fixed up for December 12 while a similar meeting
in Srinagar is likely to be held even before that.
Sources said that the Economic Advisor to the Government, Dr Haseeb Drabu, who is also Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd, has been asked to make a critical analysis of the previous budget and come up for the proposal for the forthcoming budget.
In the middle of December a team of state government led by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Finance Minister Tariq Hamid Qarra will be going to New Delhi for a meeting with the Planning Commission and the Union Finance Minister. |
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