NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 29: Every Budget is a story of listing a host of promises, which the Finance Minister promises to keep as the year passes by. However, when the time for the next Budget comes, it's the same story all over again, with much of the promises remaining as promises to be reiterated again and few of them getting fulfilled. The record of the Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is no different from his predecessors in this regard. Sinha's major failure in delivering of promises is on petrol and diesel cess. In his first Budget, Sinha had levied a Re 1 cess on petrol, which was expected to generate Rs 790 crore which was to go for development of roads. In his second Budget, Sinha levied an additional duty of Re 1 per litre on imported and domestic HSD (high speed diesel), the revenue of which was to accrue to the Centre. Of this duty, Sinha had proposed to allocate half to support the initiatives in rural development and social sectors. The other portion of 50 paise of this duty and also the duty of Re 1 per litre of the previous year was to be converted into a statutory cess and transferred to the Central Road Fund. The amount worked out to Rs 5,000 crore. However, till date this fund has not been created. Reason, the creation of the fund required Parliamentary approval through an amendment which the Government will move during the current session of the Parliament. The Finance Minister has though stated that the money has gone to the Consolidated Fund of India and whatever will be required for road development, he will allocate. In his present Budget, Sinha has once again reiterated the promise. Only time will tell how much he delivers on it this time. The Budget promises have also failed with regard to achieving disinvestment targets in public sector undertakings. The Finance Minister, in his previous Budget had stated that he would collect Rs 10,000 out of such disinvestment proceeds. However, he could garner only Rs 2,600 crore. Once again he has kept the Rs 10,000 crore target for the current fiscal. Another area where the Finance Minister has been unable to keep his promise is with regard to fiscal correction. In his Budget speech, Sinha said that this has been a difficult year for the Budget marked by expenditure over-runs and some deceleration in tax collection. The increase in budgeted expenditure has been 7 per cent whereas shortfall in budgeted tax collection is estimated to be 4 per cent. The non-Plan expenditure has increased by Rs 17,461 crore over Budget estimate of Rs 2,06,882 crore and the Plan expenditure by Rs 2,395 crore over budget estimate of Rs 77,000 crore. Thus, the fiscal deficit will increase to 5.6 per cent of GDP from the Budget target of 4 per cent. A major failure of the Finance Minister in containing Government expenditure. The promise to constitute an Expenditure Commission has also not fructified till date. The Finance Minister has, therefore, announced steps to reduce Government expenditure like limiting fresh recruitment, reviewing manpower requirement and putting a ban of creating autonomous institutions unless not approved by the Cabinet. However, the story is not only replete with failures. The Finance Minister has kept a few of his promises. For instance, in his last Budget he had said about his intention of moving towards zero-based budgeting. This year, he said that all on-going schemes will be subjected to rigorous zero-based budgeting scrutiny. He said that this exercise has been completed in eight departments, as a result 69 schemes are to be discontinued or merged. Sinha said that this process will be completed in a time-bound manner in the remaining departments. Another area where promises have delivered is with regard to Kisan Credit Cards announced in the last Budget. The programme is progressing very well and the co-operative banks, regional rural banks and commercial banks together have so far issued more than 50 lakh cards and card-cum-pass books to the farmers. Sinha said that Nabard and commercial banks will redouble their promotional efforts so as to issue an additional 75 lakh Kisan Credit Cards by March 2001.
