Presenting a balanced budget for 1967-68 to the Lok Sabha to-day [May 25], the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, proposed additional taxation to yield Rs. 69 crores in the rest of the current year for the Centre. Heavier excise duties on consumption goods account for the bulk of the additional tax revenue, which will yield Rs. 115.52 crores in a full year. Articles which will cost more to the common man are coffee, tea, cigarettes, petrol, plastic and rayon goods, aluminium articles and powerloom cotton fabrics. Mr. Desai also proposed increases in postal, telegraph and telephone rates. But there is no change in letter and post card rates. He announced some concessions in respect of personal income-tax which he himself described as minor. He also gave some selective and minor concessions in corporate taxation. He proposed reductions in export duties on jute manufactures at a loss of revenue of Rs. 13.50 crores in a full year. He has not raised import duties. The most substantial imposts fall on cigarettes, which will fetch Rs. 28.50 crores, on petroleum products excluding kerosene, which will fetch Rs. 25.60 crores, and on rayon and synthetic fibres and yarn to yield Rs. 22 crores, all in a full year. The changes in excise duties will bring in an additional revenue of Rs. 115.52 crores in a full year, out of which Rs. 22.98 crores will go to the States. Mr. Desai proposed some changes in expenditure in 1967-68 over what he proposed in the interim budget. This created a net deficit of Rs. 68 crores at existing levels of taxation, which would be slightly more than covered by the addition of Rs. 69 crores expected for the Centre from tax proposals he announced to-day [May 25]. The Finance Minister said that the provision for the Plan in the Budget, taking assistance to the States and financial institutions also into account, would not be very different from the level of the first year of the Fourth Plan. The allocation for the Central Plan this year will be Rs. 1221 crores, which is Rs. 45 crores more than the amount provided in the interim budget.
