Budget 2024-25 Wish List

Here are some of the broad ideas and suggestions for consideration in Budget for FY 2024-25. Some of these might sound weird and unachievable, and so is every new idea before it is actually turned to reality. Who thought of fully reusable launch vehicle could ever be a possibility a few years back!

1.???? National Water Grid (NWG): Given the erratic rainfall across the country, when we are witnessing floods and drought at the same time, I think it is a high time we should build a NWG, a concept somewhat similar to National Gas Grid, National Power Grid, etc. The idea is we should be able to tap the water from excess rain fed regions and channelize through the Grid across the country. This Grid can be connected with major rivers as well. Then there can be last mile State Canals for evacuation of water from NWG to respective States. The entire process of release of water, etc can be automated and centrally controlled.

This will help feed water deficient regions, almost immediate evacuation of flood waters, and in agriculture as well. Farmers can be certain about the availability of water and less dependent on rain water. This will help bring down or probably completely eliminate farmer suicides and death due to floods, and save resources spent on rebuilding the damaged infrastructure, cost of lost crop compensation, etc.. In this way the project cost can be recovered quite fast. There can be various other uses which can be thought of as well, such as, the possibility of using the NWG for inland waterways, etc.

One possible idea, on how this can be made possible at a fast pace….we have dug deep trenches besides almost the entire Golden Quadrilateral. Those can be utilised for building this NWG.

2.???? Green Consumption Linked Incentives (GCLI): We all are aware of Government Production Linked Incentive Scheme. Similar to this, we should introduce GCLI Scheme. This should be framed to incentivize consumers to consume goods and services which are produced/provided with minimal damage to the Environment. Various parameters can be fixed for the same. For example, a few states are already incentivizing use of Electric vehicles by not charging any road tax. We should bring all such schemes under the common umbrella of GCLI similar to PLI. A few examples where the incentives can be further extended could be, to restaurants and hotel buildings built in energy efficient manner and using natural cooling instead of Air conditioners, thermal insulation paints, public/private transport services provided using green fuel, goods manufactured from recycled material, other goods and services which are manufactured/provided with net zero emissions, etc. These can be incentivized by reducing or exempting GST on these goods and similar other incentives.

The idea sounds similar to PLI but the subtle difference is that if consumers are incentivized to buy/consume these environment friendly products/services, industry will also get indirectly incentivized to produce/provide these goods and services in an eco-friendly manner. This might also seem mirror image of European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Similar higher rate of tax is also an alternative solution in India but that could probably be inflationary. Also India itself is challenging the EU carbon tax at WTO. So GCLI seems more plausible to me.

If this idea sounds useful, this can be further made comprehensive by, for example, introducing separate certification by a centralized agency which will help consumer in identification of these goods and services.

?3.???? Ek Ped Maa ke Naam Campaign: Hon’ble Prime Minister recently launched this campaign on June 5 marked as World Environment Day. As a responsible citizen, I believe almost every one of us would like to participate in this campaign. However, I believe more support is required from Government to facilitate this campaign. For example: I was/am personally interested in this kind of a project and have tried contacting few of the NGOs in the recent past through which I can fund plantation of a few trees but unfortunately I was not successful. If I think of planting trees myself, in this concrete jungle which most of the cities are hosting, and boasting as well, the big question is where is the land?

I think, if we can have specifically identified small parcel of lands or places in each city, villages, etc , where individuals can plant trees and take care of them, the project can be a real success. City administration, Block panchayat, Village panchayat, etc or similar such authorities can be made responsible for identifying such parcels of land. We can also consider incentivizing people, by for example, allowing them to put the name of the person in whose name they are planting the trees.

Also to take care of nutrition and other requirements of each and every citizen, we should promote the plantation of right kind of trees, for example fruit trees, trees with medicinal values, trees which produce oxygen even in the night, etc.

Currently, around 80 Crore people in India are provided free food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) run by the Central Government. Imagine whether these people can even dream of even having fruits such as apples, Grapes, mangoes, etc! At least I don’t think so unless their economic status is lifted. And if we are truly committed to reduce inequality in this country and ensure a decent standard of living for each and everyone in this country, we need to ensure that the increase in demand consequent to increase in income levels and affordability across the economically weaker section of the society is met by timely adequate domestic supplies. For this purpose we should consider planting right kind of trees.

Lastly, it is important that we plan for augmenting all such resources which will witness heavy demand with the reduction in inequality of income and growing standards of living of the poor.

4.???? Empowering Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs): It need not be mentioned that MSMEs are one of the India’s largest employment provider. However, when it comes to the bargaining power of these MSMEs, in particular those operating in B2B segment and dealing with large corporates, the conditions of these MSMEs is no different from human slavery. They are paid minimum margins just to keep them alive to serve the interests of large corporates, as a result, they cut every corners to stay afloat for eg: working conditions are horrible, they won’t pay sufficient wages to their employees, try to avoid compliance related costs, etc. This probably is also one of the reasons why we are not able to tackle the inequality problem completely. Whether everyone is paid fairly for its share of contribution is the key question?

I don’t have a specific idea as to how this can be achieved but think there needs to be a Regulatory mechanism which ensures that MSMEs are paid their fair share of profits, which will consequently benefit the poor sections of the society.

?5.???? Taxation:

a.???? We already have a mechanism where individuals in higher income brackets are taxed at a higher income tax rate. Similarly, Corporates with higher profits are levied higher surcharge. Furthermore, luxury goods attract higher GST. However, there is a need to review whether this principle of differentiation is applied uniformly across all goods, services and sources of income.

For example: entities earning huge capital gains and not treating this as business income are subject to low base tax rates of 10% on LTCG and 15% on STCG; entities with large farm incomes, say for example above Rs 1 crore of profits every year, does not pay any taxes, etc. While these entities (for example those engaged in agriculture sector) enjoy high tax free profits but they would never pay a fair share of wages to their workers. Do we really want to give incentives to these affluent classes or to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society?

We need to ensure that we have a fair and equitable system whereby all higher earnings irrespective of their nature and all luxury goods and services are taxed at higher rates, and correspondingly, all goods and services of mass consumption should be taxed at lower rates. While there is no denial that this principle is already being followed but the coverage and uniformity of the application of this principle need to be reviewed. Also we need to make sure just like DBT scheme, that only the target poor and vulnerable section of society gets benefitted under the scheme.

We need not highlight the importance of higher education, and the need for investment in the development of human capital in general. Investment in development of human capital is one of the most important project which probably can catapult India to a developed country even before 2047. But the irony is that few of the top ranked institutions like IIMs (for few courses), ISB, etc are generally subjected to 18% GST. There is a need to relook at the applicability of GST on these institutes. We need to incentivize all such activities which are crucial to achieve the target of developed India by 2047. While I have highlighted a few institutes in the field of management but the problem exists in Institutes of other disciplines as well.

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