Key People behind the forthcoming budget

Feb 13, 2010

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:

Hailed as the father of India’s economic reforms,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes part in the
 Budget-making process. The prime minister holds
talks with the finance minister, economists and
senior officials to make sure that the Budget
 unveils policies to stimulate economic growth.

“With good crop prospects, remunerative prices being
in place and Indian prices broadly in line with international
 prices, we will soon be able to stabilise food prices,”
he said at a conference of Chief Ministers.

“This is not the first time that we are facing high rates
 of inflation of food articles. We had a similar upsurge
in 1998. Food prices are subject to cyclical bursts of
inflations and we must work together to bring them under
reasonable control.”

Earlier, during his tenure as the Finance Minister
from 1991 to 1996, Singh ushered in economic reforms
that pushed the Indian economy to new heights.

Singh was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India
from 1982 to 1985, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning
Commission of India from 1985 to 1987.

Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister :-

Pranab Mukherjee is confident that India
would grow at a faster pace of 7.75 per cent
 in the fiscal year to March 2010 against 6.7 per cent
in the previous year. On July 6, 2009, Pranab Mukherjee
presented the United Progressive Alliance government’s
annual budget.He announced various stimulus schemes,
the scrapping of the Fringe Benefit Tax, and the
Commodities Transaction Tax inthe Budget.

As the economy recovers, the finance minister faces
 the challenging task of rolling back the fiscal stimulus,
 containing the burgeoning fiscal deficit and pushing growth.

Mukherjee is ranked as one of the best five finance ministers
of the world for the year 1984 by Euro Money, a New York journal.


Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Dy Chairman, Planning Commission :

 India could emerge as the  fastest growing economy in the
world, beating China as the nation has yet to achieve its
full growth potential, according to MontekSingh Ahluwalia.
 The economy is expected to grow by 8 per cent in the year
ending March 2011. The Planning Commission has also pitched
for phased withdrawal of stimulus in the forthcoming budget.

Ahluwalia became the first director of the Independent
 Evaluation Office, International Monetary Fund (IMF) on
July 9, 2001. On June 16, 2004, he was appointed as Deputy
Chairman of the Planning Commission by the United Progressive
Alliance government and was reappointed to the post on
June 5, 2009 by Prime Minister ManmohanSingh.

Ashok Chawla, Finance Secretary:-

Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said the economy
 could finally grow higher than the 7.2 per cent
estimated by the Central Statistical Organisation.
The fiscal deficit would be cushioned by better-than-anticipated
 proceeds from stake sales in state-run firms.

A key official in the Budget making exercise,
Chawla is a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1973
batch and has also worked as secretary in the ministry
of civil aviation.

Thefinance ministry has five departments:
 economic affairs, revenue, expenditure,
financial services and divestment.

Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor :-

Kaushik Basu is the new Chief Economic Advisor
in the Department of Economic Affairs in the
Ministry of Finance. “Financial sector reforms
have to be a perpetual process. It is the
government’s role to evolve new policies which
regulate financial sector behaviour without
 stifling enterprise and innovation.

The big risk of crisis arises not from the
financial sector reforms but, on the contrary,
 stagnation in them and their failure to keep
up with the evolving markets,” he said.

Basu was earlier chairman of the Department of Economics at Cornell
University, USA. He was also the Professor for Centre for Analytic
Economics and Program on Comparative Economic Development at the
 same University.

C Rangarajan, chairman, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council:-

C Rangarajan has called for a roadmap for withdrawal of stimulus
in the upcoming Budget.

“A 7.2 per cent growth rate (projected by CSO) for the current
 financial year indicates that growth impulses are strong.
Process of fiscal consolidation must start and some steps
can be taken inthe Budget,” Rangarajan said.

A former Reserve Bank Governor, Rangarajan is a close
confidant of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He was Governor, Reserve Bank of India from 1992-1997.

During this period, besides making monetary policy a
 flexible instrument of economic policy in achieving
growth and price stability.  He gave a major thrust
to financial sector reforms.

He was also member of the Planning Commission.