Union Finance Minister Arun Mr. Jaitley will begin budget meetings with Ministry officials on Monday ahead of his first budget likely to be presented to Parliament in July.
The UPA government’s interim budget estimates presented in Parliament in February had put the Centre’s total borrowings requirement for 2014-15 at Rs. 5,96,083 crore or 4.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Interest payments on borrowings to fund past expenditure were estimated at Rs 4,27,011 crore or 43.3 per cent of the total tax revenues. Subsidies were estimated at Rs. 2,55,708 crore or 26 per cent of the budgeted tax revenues. In fact, the UPA government’s interim budget estimates showed that 80 per cent of the Centre’s net tax revenues would go towards interest payments, subsidies and pensions of government employees. In other words, the Interim budget estimates provide barely 20 per cent of the tax revenues for spending on governance and development by the new government.
