India's Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Thursday announced his Budget 2013-14 in the parliament. Although Chidambaram raised spending outlay, he said the budget deficit is set to remain within the target.
Faced with a huge fiscal deficit, Chidambaram said he has no choice but to rationalize expenditure. The government will need more than $75 billion in two years to finance the current account deficit.
He raised the government planned expenditure for 2013-14 by 29.4 percent.
The fiscal deficit for the current year ending March 31 will be 5.2 percent, slightly down from the prior projection of 5.3 percent. He targets to cut the deficit further to 4.8 percent of GDP in the next fiscal.
He proposed to impose a surcharge of 10 percent on rich taxpayer and kept personal income tax slabs unchanged.
He plans to increase surcharge on domestic companies with income exceeding INR 100 million.
The government will cut securities transaction tax on equity futures to 0.01 percent from 0.017 percent. The government plans to infuse INR 140 billion capital into state-run banks in 2013-14, he said.
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