Budget 2014: Disinvestment in public banks soon

New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley is banking on net tax revenue growth of 16.9 per cent. Banking on a revival of the stock market, he raised the disinvestment target for the current fiscal to Rs 58,425 crores.

Mr Jaitley hinted that the government will go for massive disinvestment of public sector banks, while retaining its majority stake. In the past, governments set ambitious disinvestment targets, which were seldom met. The subsidy bill was marginally up by 2.47 per cent to over Rs 2.51 lakh crores for 2014-15. However, Mr Jaitley has promised to overhaul the grants for food, fuel and fertiliser to “make it more targeted”.

Manufacturing companies with foreign investment have been allowed to sell their products through e-commerce.

Though it was widely believed that the finance minister would give an assurance that he would not impose any retrospective amendments to tax laws, investors were, however, only assured that these powers would be used judiciously. All fresh cases arising out of the 2012 amendment of the Income-Tax Act will be looked into by a high-level committee of the CBDT.

To push electronic manufacturing, Mr Jaitley imposed an education cess on imported electronic products, that will make them costlier. But soaps, computers, cathode ray TV, LCD and LED TVs below 19 inches manufactured in India will become cheaper.