MUMBAI: Where will the money come from? Was the question asked by former chief minister and minister of state in Prime Minister’s office Prithviraj Chavan. Maharashtra NCP chief Jayant Patil called the budget “confusing”. "Under Modi government, economy is facing severe recession. Automobile sector has already registered 20 per cent negative growth. The tax to GDP ratio has been reduced from 11.2 to 10.9 resulting hundreds of crores deficit in tax collection.
This month too GST collection is less than expected. After former Chief Economic Advisor to Prime Minister exposed that Gross Domestic Price (GDP) ratio in the country was inflated by 2.5 per cent, international community are not ready to believe our statistics. Then how will the PM bring money through external borrowing? Where will the money come from various schemes and dreams,” senior Congress leader Chavan questioned. "Since this was the first budget of the new government, we were expecting it would show some courage of carrying out tax, labour and other economic reforms. GST has brought only 50 per cent of taxes under reforms but rest 50 per cent direct taxes like income and company tax are in great need of reforms.
We were expecting that the Modi government will show courage to implement simplified and reformed Direct Tax Code formulated by P Chidambaram in 1996,” he said. "There was growing demand to bring petroleum products into ambit of GST. But instead of doing this the Modi government has increased taxes on petroleum products. It is shocking that when crude oil is cheaper in international market, the government is still charging heavy taxes on it,” he added.
“The government is claiming to increase the Indian economy up to $5 trillion economy till 2025. But currently the economy is $2.7 trillion. To achieve this goal in next 6 years, the GDP growth should be at least 10 per cent which is almost impossible,” he said. "There is no clarity about which sector it wants to prioritise. It was expected that hefty funds would be made available for the already existing agriculture-related
