By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, APRIL 07, 2013: THE economy is down in dumps, and our sensex is behaving awkwardly and weird. Thus, there is a need for the Government to resort to frequent policy-related publicity. Keeping this in mind, the Union Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram, yesterday held a short-notice meeting with the mediapersons and talked about the need for removing FDI sectoral caps; probe initiated into alleged banks accounts of some Indians in tax havens and also how well his revenue machinery has done after he tightened the screw on them and also came out with certain policy and procedural changes. His goal was to paint a brighter picture of the health of the economy, and he did it well.

He said that his revenue targerts, of course revised one, of Rs 10.4 lakh crore has been realised, and he is hopeful that with 6% economy growth rate in the current fiscal, he may mop up the budget-targetted revenue this fiscal. Without revealing the figures he said that indirect tax collections have taken him by surprise by achieving it. So far as direct taxes are concerned, it has marginally fallen short. And, the fiscal deficit may finally emerge to be less than even 5.2%.

As per TIOL sources, the CBEC, riding the galloping horse of service tax, has exceeded the target by more than Rs 4000 Crore, and the CBDT, which made sincere efforts towards the end, has missed the finishing line by Rs 18000 Crore. Since the CBDT Chairman was personally monitoring the collections, several tools utilised to create a fear psychosis in the mind of tax evaders, has partly worked. It may not have worked for the tax evaders but it seems to have worked for the honest taxpayers and the fence-sitters, who seem to have joined the Q4 advance tax bandwagon.

On fiscal deficit management, the FM said that there would be some saving on the expenditure front thanks to Q4 austerity drive and the freezing of funds for poorly-implemented projects.

On the scary issue of CAD, the FM said that after the numbers for the Q4 come, it may appear a little sober on the full 2012-13 scale. He also showed confidence that the Opposition may agree to 49% FDI cap in the insurance sector.

On the Vodafone issue, he said that once the Cabinet takes a decision, if the I-T Act needs to be amended, his Ministry may go for amendment of the I-T Act.