Jaitley promises more sops for farm sector

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 5

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the highest ever amount was given to the states for drought relief during the current financial year and more incentives will be given to agriculture sector for increasing farm production.

He said the agriculture growth in the past two years had suffered mainly due to insufficient rainfall.

The Finance Minister was making the opening remarks at the first meeting of the consultative committee attached to the Ministry of Finance during inter-session of Parliament held here today. The meeting was held to discuss suggestions for the Budget.

He said the fiscal deficit would be contained as per the target fixed for the current financial year 2015-16. He said this was also the first time that the real expenditure amount was higher than the Budget proposal.

He said this year the government had spent more but still deficit targets would be managed. He said during the financial year 2016-17, the Central Government has to make provision for about Rs 1.10 lakh crore in order to meet the liabilities on account of implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations and One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme.

Various suggestions were given by the Members of Consultative Committee who participated in today’s meeting.

It was suggested by various members that the tax exemption limit for middle and salaried class be raised from existing Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh and more stress be given on widening of tax base and severe punishment for those evading taxes.

It was also suggested that threshold limit for mandatory PAN requirement for transactions above Rs 2 lakh be raised to Rs 5 lakh. It was also suggested that service tax exemption limit be raised from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh sale receipts and skill development-related education institutions be exempted from service tax. Some members suggested that there should be accountability of assessing officers for passing unreasonably high tax liability orders to harass assessees which are later on turned down by the Appellate authorities.