Jai Hind - A salute to our Nation on 62nd Independence Day

I salute Indian National Flag on the occasion of 61 years of our independence.

On this August 15, we have celebrated 62nd Indian independence day in our Ayyakhar Bhavan, Queens Road in Bangalore at 8:00 am. On this occasion, our Chief Commissioner of Income Tax spoke and mainly emohised on the concept of "Ahamkaram" (Self-ego) and said that we should go away from self and try to help others within our own way. He said that there can there views on an issue. One is my view, two is your view and three is our view. Unless we take correct view taking into consideration of my view and your view, we cannot think of giving a helping hand to others.

On this eve, I also salute our Indian, Mr. Abhinav Bindra, who had achieved the first gold medal for India in an individual capacity in air rifle shooting event at Beijing Olympics, 2008. We had to wait for more than a century to get a gold medal in any olympics in an individual capacity. India is a billion country now!

The economy is on downtrend as suggested by the letest GDP estimate of 7.7% for the fiscal 2009 by PM's Economic Advisory Council. This is a downward estimate from its own ealrier estimate. The reasons for dpwnturn could be

• The tight monetary conditions prevailing in the market with the corersponding rising inetrest rates.
• The sluggish industrial growth. The main concern is the deccelration in the capital goods sector which is in single digit (5% for the period from April-June, 2008) when compared to the robust double digit growth in the same period of last year.
• The inflationary trends. The inflation tocuhed almost 16 yeras high last week. This inflation is mainly driven by incresed global prices of agricultural commodities, and oil. It is also fuelled by the relentless increase in the prices of steel and cement in India. All the developed countries are also facing their worst inflationary pressures on their economy.
• The global slow down mainly driven by weak US economy. The US economy is still reeling under sub-prime crisis. But, still to come is the credit card bubble which is yet to catch the Indian media. I will discuss this issue in this month seperately.
• The not so encouraging liquidity in stock market which in egenral reflects the sentiment towards Indian economy.

Everything is not so gloomy. The Indian economy will bounce back from the next fiscal by which time new government at the centre will bring in stability to the economic policies as well as the inflationary pressure may subside paving the way for reduced interest rates. These aspects will increse the credit offtake by the banks, will fuel the infrastructure, real estate and housing sector which are very sensitive to the interest rates.

The following are the highlights of the Prime Minsiter Sri Manmohan Singh on the eve of independence day

1. For the first time in history, we have had four years of nearly 9.0% economic growth. India is among the world’s fastest growing economies. Our economy must grow at the rate of at least ten per cent every year to get rid of poverty and generate employment for all.
2. Our growth is critically dependent on "Saat Sutras", namely agriculture, irrigation, education, health, employment, urban renewal and infrastructure.
3. India will have 30 new universities, 8 new IITs, 7 new IIMs, 20 new IIITs, 5 new Indian Institutes of Science, 2 Schools of Planning and Architecture, 10 NITs, and a 1000 new polytechnics.
4. The world today sees India as a major knowledge power whose people are skilled, competent, hard working and peace loving.

The complete speech of the PM can be seen by clicking here

61st Independence day of emerging India

We salute Indian National Flag on the occasion of 60 years of our independence.

Yesterday, we have celebrated 60 years of Indian independence. This freedom is a result of a relentless struggle made by our freedom fighters. We could learn a lot from them, especially from our Bapu or Father of the Indian Nation, Mahatma Gandhi or Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi, as depicted in our recent Hindi film "Lage Raho Munnabai" as Gandhigiri.

I celebrated this 61st independence day in our new Income Tax Towers, AC Guards, Lakdikapul, Hyderabad at 8:45 am. The following is the gist of the speech made by our Chief Commissioner of Income Tax-I, Sri D.V. Dharmik, IRS on this occasion.

"We have come a long way since our independence in 1947. As the nation has grown, our Income Tax Department has also grwon along with it. From a modest contribution of Rs. 100 crores by Direct Taxes to our exchequer, presently we are contributing Rs. 2,30,000 crores to our exchequer. For the current fiscal, the government has fixed a target for direct taxes at Rs. 2,67,00 crores, we are confident that we may reach Rs. 3,00,000 crores in this fiscal. With time, the proportion of direct taxes in the overall tax revenue to the government had a see change. As with any other country, the proportion of direct taxes increases with the development of that country. This is a good sign as direct taxes are progressive where as the indirect taxes are regressive, meaning thereby the burden on account of indirect taxes is borne by all independent of their economic status whereas direct taxes are paid in proportion to the economic ability of a person. The contribution of direct taxes has gone up from 5% of total tax revenues at the time of independence to 50% during the last fiscal.

The face of the department has also seen many changes - from high tax rates in the early sixties to the present moderate tax rates, from complete 100% scrutiny of all returns filed to selection of scrutiny of files based on the information and/or criteria. We have made many tax payer friendly measures and used our slogans for these changes like "we trust you, you trust us", "pay your taxes, hold your head high", "pay tax and relax" etc. indicating the change in approach of our department towards tax payers. With the e-filing and refund banks in place, we hope the interaction between the department and tax payer will reduce.

Even the infrastructure in the Income Tax Department has improved a lot. Presently we have very good infrastructure like our new office building known as I.T. Towers at AC Guards with centralised AC, modular work stations with a corporate look. The Government is also recognising the increased role of Direct Taxes in the Nation's economic well being. Finance Minister, Sri P Chidambaram on his inaugural speech at IT Towers said that direct taxes is the future . He lauded the efforts of our department and also said that sufficient funds will be given for improving the infrastructure in the Department".