Wishlist for the budget  

News: Every budget offers an opportunity in the hands of the government to initiate a lot of reforms. 

What should the upcoming budget focus upon? 

Simplify the tax calculations: Instead of layers of taxation, there should be one simple tax rate. 

Prime land, long leases: This will lead to increase in revenue, government here will sell land on prime locations at long leases (of 99 years or 999 years). This will help the public, it will cut commutes, make the cities more efficient, and raise money. 

Indian Special Administrative Region: One of the existing Indian cities can be converted into a world-class, fully liberal, governed-by-different-laws city like Dubai or Singapore. 

For this, government will need to legally carve out a territory to do business and have some flexible laws, best suited to it. 

Government should lower GST on tourism and transportation, this will give the industry a much-needed boost. 

Minimum wage: India should have a minimum wage for labour. Domestic help, for instance, can be hired at any salary, with no holidays all year around. That isn’t dignified and creates huge scope for exploitation.  

Dignity of people along with economic growth is what makes a country truly developed, not just rich. 

What should be an ideal budget like? 

A truly liberalised, economy is one where the budget day shouldn’t matter as much.  

No one day of the year should impact the economy or lives of 1. 4 billion people. Budget announcement should be just a means with the government to collect and spend its money.

Source: This post is based on the article “Wishlist for the budget” published in Times of India on 15th Jan 2022.