A commoners wishlist from Indian Budget 2016

Budget time again in India! Onus is on the articulate and suave Finance Minister to up the ante. Animal spirits need a rallying cry too. 

This annual ritual comes with much fanfare; with lobbyists from every sector seeking the grants and concessions. In 2016 the present dispensation would be more hard-pressed to create. Mere announcements and good intentions may not help along with expenditure of political equity!

A dysfunctional Rajya Sabha, not so good last few election results, global economic conditions, slow private investments, huge non-performing bank assets etc. makes the Budget task more challenging.

As an Indian staying outside the Indian abode, I feel few initiatives can go a long way in creating the right base for future beyond budgetary allocations.

• Education scheme at all graduate colleges and beyond for understanding Income Tax procedures in India. Investing in an initiative like this will help increase understanding, importance and penetration for tax compliance. Need to simplify tax procedures, cut many intermediaries for increasing Tax to GDP ratio significantly. India lags in tax compliance with majority of tax classes beyond service class serial offenders. Black money has created a parallel economy in the country since Independence!
• Additional Sops for “Market schemes” to enable a risk appetite atleast in medium to high income earning groups. Nationalized and other banks must be further incentivized to offer a mixture of market plus debt instruments to consumers.
• Start-up initiative is a great scheme. But, for it to percolate into nook & corner of India, need to loosen bureaucratic tape. Also the Bankruptcy bill must be expedited too.
• Being a NRI (Non Resident Indian, not an unreliable one!); my request to the Finance Minister would be to ensure that pension contributions in the host and native country are recognized. Existing contributions in insurance schemes apart from PPF like NPS (National Pension Scheme) must also be recognized.

The usual jargons and sectoral pushes would surely be there. But, emphasis on tax compliance, removing red tape wherever possible with help of digitization should be in vogue.