Agriculture and infrastructure will “undoubtedly” be the thrust areas of Budget 2007, said Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Suggesting that “big bang budgets” were a thing of the past, given that major reform initiatives had already been done, the Minister said that now was the time to address “sectoral issues.” He was speaking to CNBC-TV 18 after the release of his book A View From The Outside: Why good economics works for everyone (a collection of his pieces in The Indian Express and The Financial Express published by Penguin Books India in collaboration with The Indian Express Group). The Finance Minister outlined that he “may” look at providing tax concessions in order to further incentivise private investments into agriculture. Chidambaram specified what he thought were crucial to improving agriculture: more investment, public and private; expansion of irrigation facilities by “rapidly” bringing in far more acreage under assured irrigation; breakthrough in seeds and varieties. “The marginal farmer — somebody who has got 2 or 3 acres can no longer sustain himself only on cereals.wheat or paddy.he has to have a supplemental income,” he said. Stating that this was the order he would follow to address the issues in agriculture sector, Chidambaram admitted that these (issues) needed to be addressed by the Ministry of Agriculture: “I can only do so much through the Budget”. When asked whether one can expect a big-bang budget, the finance minister while pointing out that the major reform initiatives had been done between 1991 and 1993 and then again in 1996 and 1997, said: “You can’t do big bang (budgets) every five years.tax reforms have by and large been done.now we are addressing sectoral issues.exemption, incentives.that kind of things.the direction is clear. But obviously, there will be some changes in rates.there will be.I don’t know which rates, what rates.I can’t say. There will be some changes here and there depending on the needs of the situation.” When asked about phasing out tax exemptions, Chidambaram, while mentioning that every exemption given had a rationale at the time when it was introduced, did admit that “some (of these) exemp tions have outlived their utility”. He added that “as far as possible, exemptions must be phased out over a period of time” and when it came to granting new ones, he said “introducing new exemptions must be very very carefully weighed”.
