The Planning Commission will discuss the demands of various union ministries in three weeks to assess the gross budgetary support for them in the next fiscal, report media. quoting its Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on the sidelines of an event organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry(FICCI) at New Delhi on Tuesday.
In its earlier report, Business Standard said that 58 union ministries and departments cumulatively were seeking an increase of 82% in gross budgetary support for the next fiscal. The proposals totaled to Rs.4.09 lakh crore for the next fiscal compared to Rs.2.24 lakh crore of the current fiscal. These will be besides the stimulus packages announced by the finance ministry to bring back the economy into growth path. Meanwhile, industry chambers, including the Indian Chambers of FICCI and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will meet Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday to present their pre-Budget recommendations. They may seek continuance of stimulus measures. In its pre-Budget report, FICCI said that GDP, IIP and Core Sector performances were encouraging but it would take some more time to bring bank the economy to its high annual growth rate of 9%. It opposed the withdrawal of stimulus measures as a solution to high fiscal deficit and rising inflation. These industry bodies also feel that the tightening of monetary policy and withdrawal of stimulus measures would affect economic growth.
CII director Chandrajit Banerjee reportedly recommended continuance of the stimulus measures, and called for the implementation of Goods and Services Tax or GST within a year adding that a time frame for it should be announced in the budget.
The proposed introduction of GST is likely to be deferred due to differences between state and central governments. The industry also recommended reduction in personal and corporate tax rates, benefits to the housing sector, reintroduction of investment allowance and more incentives for exports.
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May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.