Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 1

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had to curtail her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha today after a taxing 2 hours and 40 minutes’ delivery that left her exhausted.

She even had at hand ready referrals from two doctor MPs — BJP’s Sanjay Jaiswal and TMC’s Kakoli Ghosh. By the end of the speech, Sitharaman had broken her own record of delivering the longest ever Budget speech. In 2019 as India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister, Sitharaman had clocked a 2 hours and 15 minutes Budget presentation surpassing the previous record of 2.13 hours held by Jaswant Singh.

During her speech today, the FM laid on the table a generous serving of poetic and philosophical verses and some proposals that left the Opposition anxious and angry.

The loudest opposition disapproval came when Sitharaman projected a nominal GDP growth of 10 per cent for 2021. “What?” was the refrain sounded by TMC, NCP and DMK leaders while former Congress president Rahul Gandhi sat listlessly. His mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi was absent today so was SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Opposition’s energies were mostly spent on urging the FM to not repeat herself (Sitharaman read out several statements twice for effect).

The FM for her part marched on after commencing the presentation posts greetings to her family (daughter and father) who were seated in the visitors’ gallery and watched Sitharaman from a distance.

Among the poets the FM quoted today, the first was Sahitya Akademi winner Dinanath Kaul. As Sitharaman recited in Sharada script Kaul’s salutations to the Valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the treasury line-up in offering a thunderous applause.

The FM’s invocation of poet-philosophers — Tamil woman saint Avvaiyar; Tamil philosopher Thiruvalluvar and Kalidasa — today also served well to break the monotony of Budget proposals delivered over a long duration.

It was only after 2 hours and 37 minutes that Sitharaman stopped to have water and few lozenges her colleagues Nitin Gadkari and Harsimrat Badal offered. By then the FM was too fatigued to continue and abandoned the speech with two of the 45 pages still to go.

Surpasses own record

By the end of her speech, Sitharaman had broken her own record of delivering the longest-ever Budget speech (135 min) in 2019

Invokes Thiruvalluvar

The FM laid on the table a generous serving of poetic and philosophical verses, invoking Tamil saint Avvaiyar, Tamil philosopher Thiruvalluvar and Kalidasa

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 1

India’s military budget is now literally “weighed down” by salaries and pensions. The defence budget, minus the pensions, was increased to Rs 3,37,553 crore, up from Rs 3,18,931 crore for the present fiscal ending March 31, 2020. This is a meagre 5.8 per cent hike.

The capital allocation used for purchase of new weapons, aircraft, warships and other military hardware like guns and new UAVs is Rs 1,13,626 crore. This means modernisation gets an increase of Rs 10,316 crore over this year’s allocation of Rs 1,03,310 crore.

On the other hand, the budget for pensions has been hiked by Rs 21,742 crore and is now pegged at Rs 1,33,819 crore. This year, a sum of Rs 1,12,077 crore is earmarked for pensions.

The combined budget for operations, salaries, pensions and capital for the next fiscal stands at Rs 4,71,372 crore and it works out to be 15.4 per cent of the country’s entire budget.

The services are literally weighed down by bulging “establishment” costs — euphuism for salaries. The salaries of the three services and the civilians concerned work out to be Rs 1,34,989 crore, which now form 39.99 per cent of the budget. In other words, salaries and pensions take up more money than what is allocated for modernisation.

The MoD is looking at “right-sizing” the forces and also at cutting costs within. The Army has already started the restructuring process.

Key outlays

Rs1,34,989 cr salaries

Rs1,33,819 cr pensions

Rs1,13,626 cr capital

New tax regime optional; taxpayers have the choice to either remain in the old regime with exemptions or opt for the new reduced tax rate without those exemptions

New Delhi, February 1

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced cuts in personal income tax, extended tax benefits for affordable housing and gave relief to companies on payment of dividend in the Union Budget for 2020-21 as the government looked to boost consumption to bring the economy out of the worst slowdown in 11 years.

The minister proposed raising customs duty on a variety of products ranging from tableware and kitchenware, electrical appliances to footwear, furniture, stationery and toys to give a level-playing field to domestic companies and boost ‘Make in India’.

Offering an optional lower rate of income tax to individuals, Sitharaman in her Budget for 2020-21 proposed new tax slabs of 15 per cent and 25 per cent in addition to the existing 10 per cent, 20 per cent and 30 per cent. The new I-T slabs would be for individuals not availing certain specified deductions or exemptions.

Under the proposed I-T slab, annual income upto Rs 2.5 lakh is exempt from tax. Those individuals earning between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh will pay 5 per cent tax. Income between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 7.5 lakh will be taxed at 10 per cent, while those between Rs 7.5 and Rs 10 lakh at 15 per cent.

Those earning between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 12.5 lakh will pay tax at the rate of 20 per cent, while those between Rs 12.5 lakh and Rs 15 lakh will pay at the rate of 25 per cent. Income above Rs 15 lakh will be taxed at 30 per cent.

Individuals opting for taxation under new rates will not be entitled to exemption/deductions, including under Section 80C and 80D, LTC, housing rent allowance, deduction for entertainment allowance, professional tax, and interest on self-occupied/vacant property.

Also read: Manmohan Singh calls Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech ‘too long to absorb’ 

Currently, annual income upto Rs 2.5 lakh is exempt from I-T. While a 5 per cent tax is charged for income between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh. 20 per cent for income between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh and 30 per cent for those earning above Rs 10 lakh.

“The new tax regime shall be optional for taxpayers,” she said.

Also read: FM Nirmala Sitharaman cuts short Budget speech after feeling unwell

“The proposed tax structure will provide significant relief to taxpayers and more so to those in the middle class,” Sitharaman added.

To boost growth, Sitharaman announced higher spendings on infrastructure, rural development and agri sector.

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The Finance Minister said the government is proposing a 16-point action plan to boost agriculture and farmers’ welfare.

Also read: Moving toward lower tax rates with no exemptions: FM

Agricultural services needed copious investments, she said, adding that the government had insured 6.11 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.

With her post 2019-20 Budget corporate tax cut drilling a Rs 1.45 lakh crore hole in government revenues, the minister hiked the fiscal deficit target for current fiscal to 3.8 per cent of GDP, from 3.3 per cent.

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An alumnus of Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehradun, and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, the general is a June 1982-batch officer from the Rajput Regiment and is also the Colonel of the Regime.

An alumnus of RIMC and NDA, Lt Gen C P Mohanty is a June 1982-batch officer from the Rajput Regiment. Express

Lieutenant General C P Mohanty, an infantry officer with varied operational experience including in counter-insurgency environment, assumed command of the Southern Army on Thursday. In a wreath-laying ceremony at the National War Memorial in Pune, he paid tribute to fallen soldiers, followed by a traditional Guard of Honour at the headquarters of the Southern Command.

An alumnus of Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehradun, and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, the general is a June 1982-batch officer from the Rajput Regiment and is also the Colonel of the Regime. During his military career, Gen Mohanty has had vast operational, logistics and administrative experience in varied command and staff appointments. He commanded his battalion in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast, a Mountain Brigade along the Indo-China border and a Mountain Division in counter-insurgency operations in Northeast. Later, he commanded a strategically important corps in the Eastern Theatre after the Doklam incident and also the Uttar Bharat Area at Bareilly.

Gen Mohanty has vast overseas experience of commanding a multinational brigade in the Republic of Congo, and also as the Military Adviser to the Government of Seychelles. He has held important staff appointments in an Armoured Brigade and Military Secretary Branch, besides being the Director General of Operational Logistics and Strategic Movement at Integrated Headquarters of Ministry of Defence (Army).

On the academic front, he has an MPhil and a management degree and has researched extensively on China, South Asia and northeast India, making him a domain expert of these regions. He is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), Wellington, and also an alumnus of National Defence College, Delhi.

The celebrations will culminate on February 1, when Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Naravane is slated to attend the function.

Bombay Engineer Group, also known as the Bombay Sappers, is a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army located at Khadki in Pune.

THE EVER-modernising engineering forces will remain crucial to future warfare, said Commandant of College of Military Engineering Lieutenant General Michael Mathews, at the occasion to mark 200 years of the Bombay Sappers.

Bombay Engineer Group, also known as the Bombay Sappers, is a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army located at Khadki in Pune. The Group is completing 200 years in service this month. The bicentenary celebration commenced in style on Thursday with a para adventure display, including para drop, skydiving and para motors display by serving officers, troops and veterans and teams of Army Adventure Wing. The celebrations will culminate on February 1, when Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Naravane is slated to attend the function.

Lt Gen Mathews, who is also the seniormost officer of the Bombay Sappers, addressed the media on the sidelines of the para drop display.

“Sappers have key roles to play. One is to deny the enemy the mobility by laying mines and other obstacles. The other role is to facilitate and increase mobility when we go for an offensive, and that is by building helipads, tracks, bridges. The relevance of engineering elements in warfare is going to stay, irrespective of the form it takes. The process of modernisation is always on and we too keep evolving. In modern warfare, elements of Artificial Intelligence and robotics are bound to be there. Just as an example, in the College of Engineering, there are in-depth courses of subjects, so that we are ready for future security challenges. The practical application of AI and robotics is focused in these courses,” he said.

The para drop display event commenced with the para motors show by the Army Adventure Wing Parachute team from Parachute Regiment Training Centre, Bengaluru. This was followed by the para jump, in which senior serving officers and veterans took part. Some prominent names included Major General S K Jaswal (Retired); Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Planning and Systems) Lt Gen S S Hasabnis; General Officer Commanding of the Sudarshan Chakra Corps Lt Gen Yogendra Dimri; and Commandant Bombay Engineer Group and Centre, Khadki, Brigadier MJ Kumar. The event culminated with a skydiving display by Lt Gen R R Goswami (Retired) and Brig S R Mazagaonkar (Retired), among the pioneers in skydiving in India.

Amir Karim Tantray

Tribune News Service

Doda, January 29

Doda took the lead this Republic Day to show residents’ unique style of patriotism towards the country, as two national flags were hoisted by the Indian Army on the old bridge of Pul Doda over the Chenab.

This was a unique gift given to the entire Chenab valley by the Army when, early on the morning of January 26, soldiers of the 10 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) hoisted the two national flags on the bridge and dedicated these to the people of Doda.

The bridge, made of wood and ropes, was closed to vehicular traffic after a concrete bridge was constructed over the river in early 1990s and now stands as a heritage site for posterity. The two national flags, 44-foot-high, are aloft the bridge on both banks of the Chenab, depicting the uniqueness of the 71st Republic Day.

The installation of the flags on the bridge was not an easy task for the Army as it had to manually construct the pillars and hoist the flags without the help of any crane or earthmoving machinery.

“It took one week for the Army to work on the old bridge and erect the poles without any use of modern-day technology. Due to the bad weather prevailing for a fortnight, there was no availability of cranes and latest machines in Doda, Batote, Udhampur and Kishtwar. Undeterred by the challenge, the Army decided to meet the deadline at any cost. Soldiers of the 10 RR, stationed in Doda, improvised methods and worked very hard to finally complete the work for the grand Indian Flags on both sides of the bridge on Pul Doda,” an officer of the Army said.

“The grand flags will make every passenger proud each time they pass through Pul Doda and fill their hearts with patriotism,” he added.