Kerala - Kannur   

Union budget commended

Staff Reporter

KANNUR: Shaffi Mather of the London School of Economics (LSE) has said that the Union budget addressed the question of the high growth areas versus stagnating and declining growth areas.

Inaugurating the National Budget Analysis organised by the Institute of Technology, Mayyil (IMT) here on Friday, Mr. Mather, lecturer and senior research scholar at the LSE, said that the budget presented by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram marked a shift from high-impact reform budget to a green budget. Mr. Chidambaram tended to keep the middle path in his budget, he added.

Mr. Mather said that the Finance Minister had addressed the question whether he had to support a growing economy, which created values or take care of sectors whose earnings were declining. The Minister had also faced constraints such as the inflation fuelled by supply side problems, high oil prices and the commitment to the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, which required fiscal and revenue deficits to be brought down by 2010, Mr. Mather said. When the country was growing at a very high growth rate and supply side remained stagnant, inflation was the natural outcome, he said.

Mr. Mather, however, said that tax buoyancy, increased foreign direct investment, continuing foreign institutional investment inflow and increasing exports were some of the good news for the Finance Minister. He also said that dream budget could not happen every year since the budget was also a presentation of accounting.

ITM principal Syed Anwar Kabir presided. Planning Commission expert member M. Raghavan, Kerala Handloom Export Organisation president C. Jayachandran, Chartered Accountant U. Mohanan and Kannur University Management Studies Department Reader T. Ashokan were among those present.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Sensitisation work on tsunami projects
Union budget commended

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu