The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 | |
---|---|
Parliament of India | |
| |
Citation | https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2064 |
Enacted by | Parliament of India |
Enacted | 26 August 2003 |
Assented to | 26 August 2003 |
Commenced | 5 July 2004 |
Introduced by | Mr.Yashwant Sinha |
Status: In force |
The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 (FRBMA) is an Act of the Parliament of India to institutionalize financial discipline, reduce India's fiscal deficit, improve macroeconomic management and the overall management of the public funds by moving towards a balanced budget and strengthen fiscal prudence. The main purpose was to eliminate revenue deficit [Note 1] of the country (and subsequently building revenue surplus) and bring down the fiscal deficit to a manageable 3% of the GDP by March 2008. However, due to the 2007 international financial crisis, the deadlines for the implementation of the targets in the act was initially postponed and subsequently suspended in 2009. In 2011, given the process of ongoing recovery, Economic Advisory Council publicly advised the Government of India to reconsider reinstating the provisions of the FRBMA. N. K. Singh is currently the Chairman of the review committee for Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003, under the Ministry of Finance (India), Government of India.
The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Bill (FRBM Bill) was introduced in India by the then Finance Minister of India, Yashwant Sinha [1] in December 2000. Firstly, the bill highlighted the terrible state of government finances in India both at the Union and the state levels under the statement of objects and reasons. [2] Secondly, it sought to introduce the fundamentals of fiscal discipline at the various levels of the government. The FRBM bill was introduced with the broad objectives of eliminating revenue deficit by 31 March 2006, prohibiting government borrowings from the Reserve Bank of India three years after enactment of the bill, and limit the fiscal deficit to 2% of GDP (also by 31 March 2006). [2] Further, the bill proposed for the government to reduce liabilities to 50% of the estimated GDP by year 2011. There were mixed reviews among economists about the provisions of the bill, with some criticising it as too drastic. [3] Political debate ensued in the country. Several revisions later, it resulted in a much relaxed and watered-down version of the initial bill [4] (including postponing the date for elimination of revenue deficit to 31 March 2008) with some experts, like Dr Saumitra Chaudhuri of ICRA Ltd. [Note 2] [5] (and now a member of Prime Ministers' Economic Advisory Council) commenting, "all teeth of the Fiscal Responsibility Bill have been pulled out and in the current form it will not be able to deliver the anticipated results." [6] This bill was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Union Government of India in February, 2003 [7] and following the due enactment process of Parliament, it received the assent of the President of India on 26 August 2003. [8] Subsequently, it became effective on 5 July 2004. [9] This would serve as the day of commencement of this Act.
The main objectives of the act were: [10]
Additionally, the act was expected to give necessary flexibility to Reserve Bank of India for managing inflation in India. [11]
Since the act was primarily for the management of the governments' behaviour, it provided for certain documents to be tabled in the parliament annually with regards to the country's fiscal policy. [8] This included the following along with the Annual Financial Statement and demands for grants:
The Act further required the government to develop measures to promote fiscal transparency and reduce secrecy in the preparation of the Government financial documents including the Union Budget.
The Central Government, by rules made by it, was to specify the following: [8]
The Act provided that the Central Government shall not borrow from the Reserve Bank of India except under exceptional circumstances where there is temporary shortage of cash in particular financial year. It also laid down rules to prevent RBI from trading in the primary market for Government securities. It restricted them to the trading of Government securities in the secondary market after an April, 2005, barring situations highlighted in exceptions paragraph.
National security, natural calamity or other exceptional grounds that the Central Government may specify were cited as reasons for not implementing the targets for fiscal management principles, prohibition on borrowings from RBI and fiscal indicators highlighted above, provided they were approved by both the Houses of the Parliament as soon as possible, once these targets had been exceeded. [8]
This was a particularly weak area of the act. It required the Finance Minister of India to only conduct quarterly reviews of the receipts and expenditures of the Government and place these reports before the Parliament. Deviations to targets set by the Central government for fiscal policy had to be approved by the Parliament. [8] No other measures for failure of compliance have been specified.
Subsequent to the enactment of the FRBMA, the following targets and fiscal indicators were agreed by the central government: [9] [13] [14]
Four fiscal indicators to be projected in the medium term fiscal policy statement were proposed. These are, revenue deficit as a percentage of GDP, fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP, tax revenue as percentage of GDP and total outstanding liabilities as percentage of GDP. [13]
The residuary powers to make rules with respect to this act were with the Central Government [8] with subsequent presentation before the Parliament for ratification. Civil courts of the country had no jurisdiction for enforcement of this act or decisions made therein. The power to remove difficulties was also entrusted to the Central Government.
Some quarters, including the subsequent Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram, criticised the act and its rules as adverse since it might require the government to cut back on social expenditure necessary to create productive assets and general upliftment of rural poor of India. [9] The vagaries of monsoon in India, the social dependence on agriculture and over-optimistic projections of the task force in-charge of developing the targets were highlighted as some of the potential failure points of the Act. However, other viewpoints insisted that the act would benefit the country by maintaining stable inflation rates which in turn would promote social progress. [11]
Some others have drawn parallel to this act's international counterparts like the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (US) and the Stability and Growth Pact (EU) to point out the futility of enacting laws whose relevance and implementation over time are bound to decrease. [9] They described the law as wishful thinking and a triumph of hope over experience. Parallels were drawn to the US experience of enacting debt-ceilings and how lawmakers have traditionally been able to amend such laws to their own political advantage. [4] Similar fate was predicted for the Indian version which indeed was suspended in 2009 when the economy hit rough patches. [15]
Implementing the act, the government had managed to cut the fiscal deficit to 2.7% of GDP and revenue deficit to 1.1% of GDP in 2007–08. [16] However, given the international financial crisis of 2007, the deadlines for the implementation of the targets in the act were suspended. [15] [16] The fiscal deficit rose to 6.2% [17] of GDP in 2008–09 against the target of 3% set by the Act for 2008–09. [18] However, IMF estimated fiscal deficit to be 8% after accounting for oil bonds and other off budget expenses. [19]
In August 2009, IMF had opined that India should implement fiscal reform at the soonest possible, enacting a successor to the current act. [19] This IMF paper was authored by two senior IMF economists Alejandro Sergio Simone and Petia Topalova [20] and highlighted the shortcomings of the current law along with proposed improvements for a new version.
It was reported that the Thirteenth Finance Commission of India was working on a new plan for reinstating fiscal management in India. [21] The initial expectation for revival of fiscal prudence was in 2010–11 [22] but was further delayed. Finally, the government did announce a path of fiscal consolidation starting from fiscal deficit of 6.6% of GDP in 2009–10 to a target of 3.0% by 2014–15 [23] However, eminent economist and ex-RBI Deputy Governor, S.S. Tarapore is quick to highlight the use of creative accounting to misrepresent numbers in the past. Furthermore, he added that fiscal consolidation is indeed vital for India, as long as the needs of the poor citizens are not marginalised. This need for financial inclusion of the poor while maintaining the fiscal discipline was highlighted by him as the most critical requirement for the 2011–12 Budget of India.
More recently, in February 2011, the PMEAC recommended the need for reinstatement of fiscal discipline of the Government of India, starting 2011–12 financial year. [24] In FY 2011–12, it was almost certain that government would cross the budgetary fiscal deficit target of 4.6% and it would be around 5%.
The tenth plan of the Planning Commission of India highlighted the need for fiscal discipline at the level of the states. [6] This was to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio of India. Reserve Bank of India, in its role as the ultimate financial authority in India, was also a keen supporter of the concept and publicly highlighted the need for state level fiscal responsibility legislation in India. [11] By 2007, the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are among those which have already legislated the required fiscal discipline laws at the state level. [10] [25]
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the FRBM Review Committee to be set up in the budget speech of February 2016–17. The Government of India had set up a review committee to evaluate the FRBM Act, 2003[5] in order to assess its functionality in the last 12 years. The five-member panel announced by the finance minister includes Former Revenue Secretary and Secretary to the Prime Minister of India N. K. Singh as its chairman, former Finance Secretary Sumit Bose, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Director Dr Rathin Roy. The committee had wide-ranging terms of reference (ToR) to comprehensively review the existing FRBM Act in the light of contemporary changes, past outcomes, global economic developments, best international practices and to recommend the future fiscal framework and roadmap for the country. Subsequently, the Terms of Reference were enlarged to seek the committee's views on certain recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission and the Expenditure Management Commission. These primarily related to strengthening the institutional framework on fiscal matters as well as certain issues connected with new capital expenditures in the budget. [26]
The FRBM Review Committee of 2016 has been the largest review of the FRBM Act to date. [27] The committee consisted of a large team of domain experts, consultants, experts from the private sector as well as representatives from the state governments. The committee submitted its report to the finance minister on 23 January 2017. [28] The report was submitted three months after its government-recommended deadline of 31 October 2016. The report of the review committee is presently[ when? ] being reviewed by the government of India. [29] The report of the 2017 FRBM Review Committee has positively received by the government and private sector with several articles and opinion pieces appearing in the media subsequently after the report was released in the public domain on 14 April 2017. [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] In the Budget Speech of 2017, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley deviated from his earlier fiscal consolidation road map by pegging fiscal deficit at 3.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2017–18, deferring the 3% of GDP target by a year. He mentioned the recommendations of the FRBM Review Committee Report being taken into consideration while keeping the targets for both Fiscal Deficit and Revenue Deficit. The government has also reduced revenue deficit to 2.1% of GDP in 2016–17 from the budget estimate of 2.3% of GDP and has pegged it at 1.9% of GDP for 2017–18 from 2% of GDP as mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. [35] Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, who was also a member of the FRBM Review Committee, has published his own dissent note in Annexure 5 of the report submitted to the Government of India. [36]
The report submitted is accessible on the website of the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance. It consists of 10 chapters, 4 volumes and 6 annexures:
Chapters
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Historical Perspective
Chapter 3 - International Experience
Chapter 4 - A 21st Century Debt & Fiscal Paradigm
Chapter 5 - Partnering The States
Chapter 6 - Anatomy of Credit
Chapter 7 - Fiscal Council
Chapter 8 - Escape Clauses
Chapter 9 - Other Issues
Chapter 10 - Summary of Recommendations
Annexures
Annexure 1 - Debate of the Constituent Assembly
Annexure 2 - Draft Statement of Objects & Reasons for the Debt Management and Fiscal Responsibility Bill, 2017
Annexure 3 - Draft Debt Management & Fiscal Responsibility Bill, 2017
Annexure 4 - Draft Debt Management & Fiscal Responsibility Rules, 2017
Annexure 5 - Note of Dissent by Dr. Arvind Subramanian
Annexure 6 - Rejoinder of the Committee to the Note of Dissent
Composition of the committee
Members
Mr N. K. Singh - Chairman
Dr Urjit Patel
Dr Rathin Roy
Mr Sumit Bose
Dr Arvind Subramanian
Government officers
Mr Srinivasan Ramanathan Raja, Undersecretary
Mr Prashant Goyal, Joint Secretary (Budget)
Mr Naresh Mohan Jha, Director (Budget)
Mr L. Sidharth Singh, Director - Comptroller and Auditor General of India
Mr Rangeet Ghosh, Officer on Special Duty to the Chief Economic Advisor
Mr Kapil Patidar, Deputy Director
Mr Syed Zubair Husain Noqvi, Deputy Director
Mr Sunil Chaudhary, Deputy Director
Specialist Advisors
Dr Prachi Mishra, Reserve Bank of India
Dr Subhash Chandra Pandey, IAAS
Domain Experts
Mr Sajjid Z Chinoy, Chief Economist JP Morgan
Mr Neelkanth Mishra, India Equity Strategist Credit Suisse
Mr S Gurumurthy
Mr Chetan Ahya
Mr Ashish Gupta
Mr Kush Shah
Mr Martin Wolf
Mr Francesco Giavazzi
Mr Michael Boskin
Mr Ananya Kotia
Consultants
Mr Joshua Felman
Mr S. Gopalakrishnan
Mr Vijayraj Singh
Mr Raj Kumar Hirani
Institutions
The NITI Aayog
Observer Research Foundation
The National Institute of Public Finance & Policy
International Monetary Fund
OECD
VIDHI
The government budget balance, also referred to as the general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the difference between government revenues and spending. For a government that uses accrual accounting the budget balance is calculated using only spending on current operations, with expenditure on new capital assets excluded. A positive balance is called a government budget surplus, and a negative balance is a government budget deficit. A government budget presents the government's proposed revenues and spending for a financial year.
The national debt of the United States is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to Treasury security holders. The national debt at any point in time is the face value of the then-outstanding Treasury securities that have been issued by the Treasury and other federal agencies. The terms "national deficit" and "national surplus" usually refer to the federal government budget balance from year to year, not the cumulative amount of debt. In a deficit year the national debt increases as the government needs to borrow funds to finance the deficit, while in a surplus year the debt decreases as more money is received than spent, enabling the government to reduce the debt by buying back some Treasury securities. In general, government debt increases as a result of government spending and decreases from tax or other receipts, both of which fluctuate during the course of a fiscal year. There are two components of gross national debt:
The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is an agreement, among all the 27 member states of the European Union (EU), to facilitate and maintain the stability of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Based primarily on Articles 121 and 126 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, it consists of fiscal monitoring of member states by the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, and the issuing of a yearly Country-Specific Recommendation for fiscal policy actions to ensure a full compliance with the SGP also in the medium-term. If a member state breaches the SGP's outlined maximum limit for government deficit and debt, the surveillance and request for corrective action will intensify through the declaration of an Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP); and if these corrective actions continue to remain absent after multiple warnings, a member state of the eurozone can ultimately also be issued economic sanctions. The pact was outlined by a European Council resolution in June 1997, and two Council regulations in July 1997. The first regulation "on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies", known as the "preventive arm", entered into force 1 July 1998. The second regulation "on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure", sometimes referred to as the "dissuasive arm" but commonly known as the "corrective arm", entered into force 1 January 1999.
A balanced budget amendment is a constitutional rule requiring that a state cannot spend more than its income. It requires a balance between the projected receipts and expenditures of the government.
PAYGO is the practice in the United States of financing expenditures with funds that are currently available rather than borrowed.
Fiscal policy is any changes the government makes to the national budget to influence a nation's economy. "An essential purpose of this Financial Report is to help American citizens understand the current fiscal policy and the importance and magnitude of policy reforms essential to make it sustainable. A sustainable fiscal policy is explained as the debt held by the public to Gross Domestic Product which is either stable or declining over the long term". The approach to economic policy in the United States was rather laissez-faire until the Great Depression. The government tried to stay away from economic matters as much as possible and hoped that a balanced budget would be maintained. Prior to the Great Depression, the economy did have economic downturns and some were quite severe. However, the economy tended to self-correct so the laissez faire approach to the economy tended to work.
The United States budget comprises the spending and revenues of the U.S. federal government. The budget is the financial representation of the priorities of the government, reflecting historical debates and competing economic philosophies. The government primarily spends on healthcare, retirement, and defense programs. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office provides extensive analysis of the budget and its economic effects. CBO estimated in February 2024 that Federal debt held by the public is projected to rise from 99 percent of GDP in 2024 to 116 percent in 2034 and would continue to grow if current laws generally remained unchanged. Over that period, the growth of interest costs and mandatory spending outpaces the growth of revenues and the economy, driving up debt. Those factors persist beyond 2034, pushing federal debt higher still, to 172 percent of GDP in 2054.
In American political theory, fiscal conservatism or economic conservatism is a political and economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility with an ideological basis in capitalism, individualism, limited government, and laissez-faire economics. Fiscal conservatives advocate tax cuts, reduced government spending, free markets, deregulation, privatization, free trade, and minimal government debt. Fiscal conservatism follows the same philosophical outlook as classical liberalism. This concept is derived from economic liberalism.
The Finance Commissions are commissions periodically constituted by the President of India under Article 280 of the Indian Constitution to define the financial relations between the central government of India and the individual state governments. The First Commission was established in 1951 under The Finance Commission Act, 1951. Fifteen Finance Commissions have been constituted since the promulgation of Indian Constitution in 1950. Individual commissions operate under the terms of reference which are different for every commission, and they define the terms of qualification, appointment and disqualification, the term, eligibility and powers of the Finance Commission. As per the constitution, the commission is appointed every five years and consists of a chairman and four other members.
The Ministry of Finance of Chile is the cabinet-level administrative office in charge of managing the financial affairs, fiscal policy, and capital markets of Chile; planning, directing, coordinating, executing, controlling and informing all financial policies formulated by the President of Chile.
Nand Kishore Singh is an Indian politician, economist and former Indian Administrative Service officer. He is a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since March 2014 after having served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (2008-2014) from Bihar for the Janata Dal (United). He has been a senior bureaucrat, Member of the Planning Commission and handled assignments of Union Expenditure and Revenue Secretary. He was also Officer on Special Duty to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Canadian public debt, or general government debt, is the liabilities of the government sector. Government gross debt consists of liabilities that are a financial claim that requires payment of interest and/or principal in future. They consist mainly of Treasury bonds, but also include public service employee pension liabilities. Changes in debt arise primarily from new borrowing, due to government expenditures exceeding revenues.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is a non-departmental public body funded by the UK Treasury, that the UK government established to provide independent economic forecasts and independent analysis of the public finances. It was formally created in May 2010 following the general election and was placed on a statutory footing by the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. It is one of a growing number of official independent fiscal watchdogs around the world.
The 2013 United States federal budget is the budget to fund government operations for the fiscal year 2013, which began on October 1, 2012, and ended on September 30, 2013. The original spending request was issued by President Barack Obama in February 2012.
Political debates about the United States federal budget discusses some of the more significant U.S. budgetary debates of the 21st century. These include the causes of debt increases, the impact of tax cuts, specific events such as the United States fiscal cliff, the effectiveness of stimulus, and the impact of the Great Recession, among others. The article explains how to analyze the U.S. budget as well as the competing economic schools of thought that support the budgetary positions of the major parties.
Deficit reduction in the United States refers to taxation, spending, and economic policy debates and proposals designed to reduce the federal government budget deficit. Government agencies including the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the U.S. Treasury Department have reported that the federal government is facing a series of important long-run financing challenges, mainly driven by an aging population, rising healthcare costs per person, and rising interest payments on the national debt.
The constitution of Expenditure Management Commission (EMC) of India was announced in the Budget Speech by Finance Minister of India Arun Jaitley in the budget of 2014–15. The Commission was a recommendation body with the primary responsibility of suggesting major expenditure reforms that will enable the government to reduce and manage its fiscal deficit at a more sustainable levels.
The 2017 Union Budget of India is the
The Thirteenth Finance Commission of India was constituted by the President of India under the chairmanship of Vijay L. Kelkar on 13 November 2007.
The Fourteenth Finance Commission of India was a finance commission constituted on 2 January 2013. The commission's chairman was former Reserve Bank of India governor Y. V. Reddy and its members were Sushma Nath, M. Govinda Rao, Abhijit Sen, Sudipto Mundle, and AN Jha. The recommendations of the commission entered force in April 2015; they take effect for a five-year period from that date.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)