 Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankara Ace Academy. The list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvannapuram Medicines are provided here. The link for the handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping for the displayed articles is provided in the description box below. And for the benefit of smartphone users, the time stamping is also provided in the comments section. Let's move on to our first article analysis. This article is about the budget presented by the finance minister. This article discussion will be a part of prelim syllabus under current events of national importance and then in Indian polity and governance. The discussion is also relevant in main syllabus in general studies paper two under the area significant provisions of Indian constitution and then also under government policies and intervention for development in various sectors. And the discussion is also relevant in GS paper three under Indian economy and issues related to planning mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment and then also under government budgeting. Yesterday, the union finance minister while presenting the budget speech also presented certain documents before the parliament that are based on the Indian constitution. One among such documents is the annual financial statement which is based on articles 112 of Indian constitution. Another document is demand for graphs which is under the article 113 of the Indian constitution. Then finally, the finance bill which is based on article 110 clause 1 of Indian constitution. The annual financial statement consists of estimated receipts and expenditure of the government of India for the year 2019 to 2020. In connection with the estimates of the year 2018 to 2019 and the actual expenditure for the year 2017 to 2018. These are shown under three parts in which the government accounts are kept. They are the consolidated fund of India, the contingency fund of India and the public accounts of India. We saw that demand for grants is a document based on article 130. The estimates of expenditure made from the consolidated fund of India as stated in the annual financial statement has to be voted by the Lok Sabha. Here note that there is difference in expenditure made and expenditure charged upon consolidated fund of India. The expenditure charged under the fund is not voteable by the Lok Sabha. And the finance bill details the imposition of taxes, abolition of taxes, remission, alteration and regulation of taxes as proposed in the budget. According to article 110 of the constitution, this finance bill is a money bill. Then as part of budget, two important statements were laid before the parliament that are based on provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act that is FRBM Act of 2003. These statements are macroeconomic framework statement and medium term fiscal policy and fiscal policy strategy statement. These two statements are presented to the parliament based on section 3 of the FRBM Act of 2003. Then another important document which is presented before the parliament is the outcome budget. With effect from financial year 2007 to 2008, the performance and outcome budget were presented to the parliament. Previously, this was done separately by the ministries or department till the financial year 2017. But since financial year 2017 to 2018, the outcome budget of all ministries has been combined into a single document. This single document will be brought out by Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the government think tank which is the Niti Ayog. It consists of clearly defined outputs and outcomes of various central sector schemes and centrally sponsored schemes for the present financial year. Now, one correction here. In one of our previous classes, we have mistakenly mentioned that PM Kisan is a centrally sponsored scheme. We request the viewers to note the correction in it because it is a central sector scheme which gets absolute or 100% funding from the central government. Now, coming back to the discussion, the above mentioned all the documents along with the expenditure budget, receipts budget, expenditure profile, budget at a glance and the memorandum explaining the provisions of the finance bill are called as budget documents. Also, one more important thing to note here is that there is no mention of the term budget in the Indian constitution. But however, we have three important budget documents that are based on the provisions of the Indian constitution. Till the end of this financial year, whatever mentioned in the budget will be discussed in the news again and again. Now, let us see few important things mentioned in this news article. The article states that the income tax return can be now filed using Aadhar. Previously, the requirement of permanent account number that is PAN was compulsory. Because of this announcement, it is now expected that many more individuals will file income tax returns. A detailed analysis based on this will be done later in our discussion. Then the article also states that the customs duty on gold and other precious metals has been increased from 10% to 12.5%. Here the customs duty is nothing but the tax levied or imposed on the imports. Then the excise duty for fuel has been hiked by rupees 1. Here the excise duty is an indirect tax which is levied on those goods that are manufactured in India and are meant for home consumption. Then the budget has announced that rupees 1 lakh loan will be given under Mudra scheme to one woman in every self-help group. The Mudra loans are extended for a variety of purposes that provides income generation and employment creation in manufacturing, services, retail and agriculture-aligned activities. Then also the Swachh Bharat mission has been expanded to undertake the solid waste management in all villages. Then along with this, it was also announced that the Reserve Bank of India is to be the regulator for the housing finance sector. It was also mentioned that the Reserve Bank of India is to be strengthened in its regulatory role with respect to the non-banking and financial companies, that is NBFCs. Then the goods and services tax for the electric vehicles has been reduced from 12% to 5%. Also a new section ATEB has been inserted into the Income Tax Act. This section aims to provide for a deduction of 1.5 lakhs on interest on loans obtained from financial institutions for the purchase of an electric vehicle. This is a huge support offered by the government to urge the citizens to adopt for cleaner forms of energy to minimize pollution. Then another announcement in the budget was the corporate tax rate has been lowered for the companies with an annual turnover less than 400 crore. The government has expressed its support based on reduction in tax for such forms to aid in the growth. The news article also says that the start-ups have been relieved from angel tax. After the selling of shares by the start-ups, the fair market value of the premium of shares issued by them are assessed by the tax authorities. In such assessment, if certain premium was found to be in excess of the fair market value, the excess amount in share price or premium will be grouped as income from other sources and it will be taxed at 30.9%. This assessment had lot of issues because in one assessment by an independent entity the share prices will be found to be of fair market value. But when tax officials come, in their calculations it becomes excess. Therefore, due to such issues it was found that the start-up companies were unable to raise funds from angel investors. Because angel investors say that even if I invest in you, your government will come and take them as taxes. So, the amount I give to you is not going to benefit you. This is what they say. This year's budget has actually relaxed certain norms and waived the scrutiny of tax officials on certain matters with respect to start-ups in the matter of angel tax. With this, we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion, which is based on the union budget on agricultural sector. The discussion is important in prime syllabus under current events of national importance, then in economic geography and also in economic and social development, particularly under sustainable development, poverty, then in general issues on environmental ecology, biodiversity also. Then the discussion can be linked to main syllabus under GS paper 2, in the area government policies for development in various sectors, then in welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the centre and states and the performance of these schemes and then also in issues relating to poverty and hunger. The discussion is also important in GS paper 3 under Indian economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development. Then also in inclusive growth, then next in government budgeting and then next in transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues related constraints, then also in e-technology in the aid of farmers. In the union budget on the agricultural sector, the finance minister pointed to the policy initiatives in the sector. One of the policy initiatives was based on the online national agriculture market that is ENAM. The finance minister noted that the union government will work with state governments to allow farmers to benefit from ENAM. Here the national agriculture market that is ENAM is a Pan India Electronic Trading Portal. Pan India means all the parts of India. The Electronic Trading Portal creates the networking of the existing APMC Mondays that is the Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Committee Mondays. This is to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. The small farmers agribusiness consortium that is FSAC is the lead agency for implementing ENAM. SFAC works under the ages of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Government of India. The ENAM aims to promote uniformity in agriculture marketing by streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets by removing information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and also by promoting real-time price discovery based on the actual demand and supply. And the integration of APMCs across the country through a common online market platform is to facilitate Pan India trade in agriculture commodities as we saw earlier. This will be done by providing better price discovery through transparent auction process. This process is based on the quality of produce and it provides timely online payment also. Then the next policy initiative is to form 10,000 new farmer producer organizations. This is to ensure the economies of scale that is to ensure proportionate saving in costs which is gained by an increased level of production for farmers over the next 5 years. And then the finance minister urged the farmers to go back to the basics approach that is to go back to the zero budget farming. The zero budget farming or zero budget natural farming is a set of farming methods. It is also a grassroots or most basic peasant movement which has spread to various states in India. It has attained wide success in southern India especially in the state of Karnataka where it first evolved. The neoliberalization of the Indian economy that is the ideology of free market competition has led to a deep agrarian crisis which is making small scale farming a non feasible occupation. This is because the privatized seeds inputs and markets are inaccessible and expensive for the farmers. So Indian farmers increasingly find themselves in a vicious cycle of debt because of high production costs, high interest rates for credits, the volatile market prices of crops, then the rising costs of fossil fuel based inputs and also because of privatized seeds. Under such conditions the zero budget farming promises to end the reliance of farmers on loans and it promises to drastically cut production costs by ending the debt cycle for farmers. Here the word budget in the zero budget farming refers to credit and expenses. Thus the phrase zero budget means without using any credit and without spending any money on purchased inputs and the natural farming means farming with nature and without the use of chemicals. There are four pillars of zero budget natural farming. One is Jivamruta or Jivamrutham. It is a fermented microbial culture. It enhances soil microbiome through the application of cow dung, curve urine and other local ingredients. It provides nutrients but most importantly it acts as a catalyst that promotes the activity of microorganisms in the soil as well as it increases the earthworm activity. Jivamruta also helps to prevent fungal and bacterial plant diseases. Then the next pillar is the Bijamruta or Bijamrutham. It is a treatment used for seeds, seedlings or any planting material. Bijamruta is effective in protecting young roots from fungus as well as from soil borne or seed borne diseases that commonly affect plants after the monsoon period. It is composed of similar ingredients like Jivamruta such as local cow dung, a powerful natural fungicide and curve urine, strong antibacterial liquid, lime and soil. Then next is the Achchadana mulching. Mulching means materials such as decaying leaves, bugs or compost are spread around or are spread over a plant to enrich the soil or to insulate the soil. Then finally Vapasa moisture. The plant roots need a lot of water thus countering the over reliance on irrigation in green revolution farming. Vapasa is the condition where there are both air molecules and water molecules present in the soil. If all this can be achieved then there will not be any need to use chemical fertilizers that is why the finance minister is proposing to adopt such farming method. Now after these announcements the farmers group have complained that re-elected governments first budget has ignored their concerns. Also they noted that when the interim budget was presented in February there was a clear focus on farmers welfare by the government because of the upcoming looks by elections and five months later the re-elected governments first budget has ignored their concerns as the elections are over. This complaint is because half the country is in the grip of drought today and no special concern or commitment has been given for that by the government. But if you see the agricultural ministries budget has been almost doubled. It is rupees 1.38 lakh crore this year in comparison to the revised estimates. You may think then why the farmers are unhappy. This is because the line share that is the largest part of the agricultural ministries budget is meant for the single scheme and that scheme is PM Kisan scheme. We know that PM Kisan is an income support scheme for the small and marginal farmers which was announced in the interim budget just before the elections. And in this also there are some problems because one of the election promise and cabinet decision was to expand the PM Kisan scheme to all farmers. But it does not seem to be reflected in the budget because the allocation for the scheme is only rupees 75000 crore but the amount needed to cover all the farmers was estimated by the government to be around 87000 crore. So the allocated budget is short of almost rupees 12000 crore. In addition to this the finance minister also mentioned about the focus on agriculture infrastructure. The minister ensured support to the private entrepreneurship in driving value addition to the farmers produced from the field and for those from allied activities also like bamboo and timber from the hedges. And the private entrepreneurship for generating renewable energy also. For this the minister noted that Anadata can also be Urjadata. Anadata means food cultivator and Urjadata means power generator. So it means the farmers as the power generators of renewable energy. And also the agriculture infrastructure emphasizing on daring through cooperatives shall be encouraged. It was said by the finance minister. This will be done through creating infrastructure for cattle feed manufacturing, milk procurement, processing and marketing. The agri-infrastructure will be strengthened through farmer welfare schemes including crop insurance, market intervention and price support and the PM Asha procurement scheme. Because all these schemes got higher allocations than the last budget. But still the farmers groups feel that this fund will not be sufficient at the time of agricultural crisis and water stress. According to the farmers groups for the farmers to get the benefit of MSP that is the minimum support prices the government should have allocated at least Rs. 50,000 crore under PM Asha. So that it will guarantee the procurement at mentioned MSPs. But currently the scheme has been allocated only 1500 crores. PM Asha is the acronym for Pradhan Mantri Anadatha I Sanrakshan Abhyan. The PM Asha scheme is aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce. You may think already we have minimum support price to provide the remunerative prices to farmers. Then why there is a need for a new scheme? This is because increasing MSP is not adequate. And it is important that farmers should get full benefit of the announced MSPs. For this government realizes that it is essential if price of the agricultural produce market is less than the MSP. Then in that case state government and central government should purchase either at MSP or work in a manner to provide MSP for the farmers through some other mechanism. With this approach the umbrella scheme of PM Asha was introduced. It has three sub schemes. One is price support scheme, other is price deficiency payment scheme and the third one is pilot of private procurement and stockist scheme. In the price support scheme or in the PSS the physical procurement of pulses, oil seeds and copper will be done by central nodal agencies with proactive role of state governments. It is also decided that in addition to the national agricultural corporate marketing federation of India limited the food corporation of India will take up PSS operations in states and districts. The procurement expenditure and losses due to the procurement will be borne by the central government as per norms. Under price deficiency payment scheme it is proposed to cover all oil seeds for which MSP is notified. In this the direct payment of the difference between the MSP and the selling price will be made to pre-registered farmers who is selling is produced in the notified market here through a transparent auction process. All payment will be done directly into registered bank account of the farmer. The scheme does not involve any physical procurement of crops as farmers are paid the difference between the MSP and the sale price. Then the private procurement stockist scheme that is the PPSS was rolled on pilot basis for oil seeds. It involves the participation of private stock. The pilot district or selected APMCs of district will cover one or more crop of oil seeds for which the MSP is notified. Since this is similar to the price support scheme or PSS which involves physical procurement of the notified commodity the private procurement stockist scheme shall substitute the PSS or PDPS in the pilot districts. The selected private agency shall procure the commodity at MSP in the notified markets during the notified period from the registered farmers in consonance with the PPSS guidelines. We will see more detailed analysis on PM Asha in the coming days. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. Moving on to the next news article which talks about the steps that are taken in the recent budget announcement to transform the cash driven economy to a less cash economy. This article discussion will be relevant under the current events of national importance and then also under the area economic development. The discussion will also be helpful in your main syllabus in GS paper 2 under government policies and interventions in various sectors and also in e-governance. Then it is also relevant in GS paper 3 under Indian economy. The article states that the business establishments with an annual turnover of more than 50 crore should not impose any charges on the customers using digital mode for payments. This is because the business establishments used to charge some amount from the customers for using the digital mode of payments because of the merchant discount rate. Here you should note that in the 2018 prelims exam there was a question on the merchant discount rate. So, let us know what is this? The merchant discount rate is the charge obtained from a merchant by a bank for accepting digital payments from his customers through debit or credit cards. This charge is imposed on the customers. In order to get payments through debit card and credit card the merchants have to buy and keep payment infrastructure such as point of sale machines, internet facility etc. For this the merchants also have to start a unique account called as merchant account with the bank. This account is to receive the payments from the customers. Since the bank provides such payment services the merchants have to give a payment to the bank. This payment is for using the digital payment infrastructure set up by the bank to receive the payments from customers. This payment is called as the merchant discount rate. Now after the budget if the shop in which you are in is getting an annual turnover of more than 50 crore they should not charge you for using digital payment services. So does this mean now it is burdened on such merchants? No, it is not because the costs from the customers will be absorbed by the RBA from the savings generated because of handling less cash. So what does this savings mean? If there are large number of cash notes banks spend huge money for security infrastructure etc. Now if India becomes less cash economy these amounts spent on the physical security for cash notes will reduce. This reduce to money is the savings referred in the news article. From this savings the RBA will absorb the charges. So it will not be a burden on the merchant and the finance minister has stated that banks should not charge merchant discount rate from such merchants also. The merchants mentioned here are the merchants whose turnover is more than 50 crores. The merchants having annual turnover of more than 50 crore are asked to provide the payment options such as BIM, UPI, UPI QR code, ADARPAY, debit cards, NEFT and RTGS and other payment options to the customers to promote digital payments. Then the budget also proposed a tax on cash withdrawals. That is if there are cash withdrawals of more than 1 crore in a year then the government will charge 2% of amount as tax deducted at source. Here the source is the bank account hence this will discourage withdrawals. Discouraging withdrawals of cash notes means encouraging the use of digital payments. Now these are the two important and significant steps reported in this news article as taken for promoting cash less economy. With this we have come to the end of this news article discussion. This split practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion which is about the announcement of interchangeability of ADAR with PAN in the union budget. The discussion is important in premium syllabus under current events of national importance and then also in economic development. The discussion can also be linked to main syllabus in general studies paper 2 under the area e-governance applications models successes limitations and potential and then it can also be linked to GS paper 3 under government budgeting. The union budget 2019-20 has proposed to make ADAR interchangeable with PAN. This is for the ease and convenience of taxpayers. Hence it allows people without PAN to file the income tax returns by simply quoting their ADAR number. Moreover ADAR number can be used wherever the people are required to quote PAN. So what are these ADAR number, PAN and income tax returns? Firstly let us know about ADAR number. ADAR number is a 12 digit random number. It is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI. This number is issued to the residents of India. So only the residents of India can get ADAR number. Hence any individual who is a resident of India irrespective of age and gender may voluntarily enroll to obtain the ADAR number. This number is issued after the citizens satisfy the verification process which is laid down by the authority that is UIDAI. Now the person who is willing to enroll to obtain the ADAR number has to provide minimal demographic and biometric information during the enrollment process. This process is totally free of cost. Demographic information is nothing but the details related to the persons such as a name, date of birth or age, gender, address, mobile number and email ID. And in the biometric information biometrics means the physical or behavioral human characteristics of a person that can be used to digitally identify a person. So biometric information constitutes fingerprints of the ten fingers, two iris scans and facial photograph. Also know that an individual needs to enroll for ADAR only once. This is because it is a unique number allocated to the individuals and it cannot be duplicated as no two persons will have the same biometrics. So it is unique and robust enough to eliminate duplicates and fake identities. So it may be used as a basis or primary identifier to roll out several government welfare schemes and programs. This will ensure effective service delivery then as a result it will promote transparency and good governance also. This is the only program of its kind globally. The state of the art that is ultra modern digital and online ID is being provided free of cost at such a large scale to people. So we can say that it has the potential to change the way service delivery functions in our country. Also remember that ADAR number does not have any intelligence and it does not profile or describe people based on caste, religion, income, health and geography. The ADAR number is just a proof of identity but what we have to note here is that it does not confer any right of citizenship or domicile in respect of an ADAR number. The ADAR identity platform enables the government of India to directly reach the residents of the country to deliver various subsidies, benefits and services just by using the residence ADAR number only. This is possible with its inherent features of uniqueness, authentication, financial address and EKIC that is know your customer. In addition to the interchangeability, the finance minister also proposed allotting ADAR to non-resident Indians or NRIs who are arriving in India on an expedited basis. That is without waiting for 180 days. Now you may think that in the discussion we saw only residents of India can get ADAR. Then how can a non-resident Indian can get ADAR? Look, as per the ADAR targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services act of 2016 or in short the ADAR act of 2016 only a resident individual is entitled to obtain ADAR. The resident as per the said act means that an individual who has resided in India for a period or periods which amounts to 182 days or more and these 182 days should be in the 12 months which is immediately preceding the date of application for enrollment. So the finance minister is talking about such kind of NRIs only. So far the non-resident Indians with an Indian passport had to wait for 180 days after their arrival in India before they can apply for ADAR. But the budget has proposed to remove this waiting time. So now let us see about PAN. PAN is the acronym for the permanent account number. It is a 10 digit alphanumeric identifier. It is issued by the income tax department. Such SSC that is any individual or firm or company etc are issued with a unique PAN. All the existing SSCs or taxpayers or persons who are required to file a return of income must have a PAN. Even if they are willing to file the return of income on behalf of others they must have a PAN. So any person who intends to enter into economic or financial transaction where quoting PAN is mandatory must also have a PAN. Also know that it is compulsory to quote PAN on return of income. Here the return of income or the income tax return is a prescribed form through which the particulars of income earned by a person in a financial year and taxes paid on such income are communicated to the income tax department. It also allows the carry forward of laws and claim refund from income tax department. Also know that different forms of returns of income are prescribed for filing of returns for different status and nature of income. Now it is important to file the return of income as it is our duty as a citizen and it also earns the dignity for us for consciously contributing to the development of the nation. Apart from this the income tax returns validate the credit worthiness of a person before the financial institutions and it makes it possible for the person to access many financial benefits such as bank credits etc. And also more importantly failing to file the return as a crime because it means the person is hiding her or his income from the government. So the non-payment of tax attracts interest, penalties and prosecution also. The prosecution can lead to at least a rigorous imprisonment for about 3 months to 2 years. Hence it becomes mandatory to file the return of income. But the problem faced by many with the filing of the income is that many do not have the PAN and as we saw PAN is necessary to file this income tax return. So to solve this problem the finance minister has announced the interchangeable use of PAN and Aadhar. This means even when a person does not have PAN they can file the return of income using the Aadhar number. And also know that according to the data of central board of direct taxes 42 crore PAN cards have been issued out of which only 23 crore have been linked with Aadhar. However here we have to note that the intent of announcement is not to replace PAN with Aadhar as the primary identity proof when it comes to income tax. Here Aadhar is just an alternative. With this we have come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the last discussion for the day which is based on the fiscal deficit. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in problems preparation under current events of national importance and then also under economic development. The discussion is also relevant in mains preparation under general studies paper 3 in the area Indian economy and also under government budgeting. Now before getting into the discussion you have to note that we have had a very detailed discussion about various components in calculating the fiscal deficit in our first June analysis. The link has been provided in the description box. Please go and have a look at it. Now for discussing today's news article we have to know some basics. So let us see those basics now. The government earns different types of revenues which we are seeing under deceives branch of this displayed picture. So all these revenues put together are called as total revenues and all the expenditures of the government are called as total expenditures. Now what is deficit? Deficit is the condition when your spending is greater than the money you earn. So the fiscal deficit means the total expenditure minus the total receipts except the borrowings and other liabilities. It simply means the deficit that arises when the government's expenditure exceeds its revenues. Here exclude the money generated as revenues from the borrowings and other liabilities. We can also say that fiscal deficit is the total expenditure minus the total receipts except the debt capital receipts because the borrowings and other liabilities are a part of this debt capital receipts or you can also say in one more way the fiscal deficit value is nothing but the government's borrowing and other liabilities. So in order to manage this fiscal deficit the government can do two things either it has to increase its revenues or it has to decrease its expenditure. Now the news article states that the government is estimating a fiscal deficit of 3.3% of GDP in the financial year 2019-20. If you see in the interim budget that was presented in the parliament in February the interim budget gave an estimate of fiscal deficit at 3.4%. The interim budget are generally presented by the government when the elections are about to happen in the particular financial year but these interim budgets will be similar to the general budget since the government would present the entire budget as it does for the general budget. We saw that in order to efficiently manage fiscal deficit the government should either get more revenues or decrease or control its expenses. The finance secretary has given the same reason to why they have reduced the estimate of fiscal deficit from 3.4% to 3.3%. Under the revenue receipts we have the tax revenues and non-tax revenues and under the tax revenues we have the direct taxes like income tax, wealth tax etc. And indirect taxes like GST, customs duty, excise duty etc are also there. The finance secretary has said that the direct taxes have been budgeted to increase by 17.5% in this financial year that is in 2019-20. While in the financial year 2018-19 there has been an increase of 23-24%. Next the budget has estimated an increase of indirect taxes by 15%. Then the government also aims to increase the revenue from the non-tax revenues such as receiving money in the form of interest, profits and dividends. The finance secretary has said that the government had budgeted a dividend from the Reserve Bank of India which is about Rs 90,000 crore. Then under non-debt capital receipts you have the disinvestment proceeds which is nothing but the money earned by the government by withdrawing its investments that it has on public units. The government has said that it has set itself a target of Rs 1,00,000 crore for disinvestment proceeds for the financial year 2019-20. So all these will give revenues or money to the government. Now coming to the expenditure side of the budget, the finance secretary has said that the amount budgeted now is more or less the same as in the interim budget that was tabled in the parliament in the month of February before elections. The news article also mentions that the government has cut the allocations for several major schemes. The largest expenditure cut is for the Swachh Bharat scheme where the government has cut around Rs 4,334 crore. So when compared to the interim budget the government will save about Rs 6000 crore overall. All this will reduce or bring the fiscal deficit down to 3.3% from 3.4%. However, the rating agencies and tax analysts say that there is a risk of missing the 3.3% target. If tax revenue falls short of the target. One of the market analysts has told that the government is over dependent on disinvestment income then on higher taxes on the rich and also on the increased excess duties on petrol, diesel, precious metals and tobacco products. He has told that if the incomes to the government from tax revenues are going to be less in this financial year then the government will miss the fiscal deficit target. So here the incomes are nothing but the revenues to the government. Even the economic survey has said that fiscal deficit targets will be affected if the government will not collect enough money from the tax revenues similar to the condition in financial year 2018 to 2019. If you see in the financial year 2018 to 2019 the government predicted a total revenue of 17.2 lakh crore in its revised estimates. But the data in the economic survey showed this was actually 1.6 lakh crore lower. That means it was just 15.6 lakh crore. Now this reduction in revenues was due to reduction in collections from the tax receipts. To summarize this news article we can say that the government is aiming to increase its revenues through the form of tax revenues, disinvestments then hiking the customs duties for certain products and decrease its expenditures in form of cuts in the allocations made to several schemes. With this we have come to the end of our article discussion sessions. The respect practice question will be discussed in the next session. Moving on to the last session for the day practice questions discussion session. If you look at the first question it is about the union budget. The question is which of the following is correct with respect to the union budget presented by the finance minister. Four options have been given. The first option says the budget document does not include the demand for grants under article 113 of Indian constitution. But in our analysis we saw that there are three budget documents which are based on Indian constitution and one among them is demand for grants which is provided under article 113 of the Indian constitution. So this statement is wrong. Then the second statement is the term budget is found in the constitution of India. Now this statement is also wrong because we saw that the term budget is not mentioned in the constitution of India. But there are three budget documents. One is the annual financial statement and then next is the demand for grants and the third one is the finance bill. Now if you look at the last option it has given all the above are correct. Now just we saw that option A and B are incorrect. So this means option D is also incorrect. That makes our option C as the correct statement and also know that the annual financial statement which is a part of the budget is mentioned in the Indian constitution and it has been mentioned under article 112 of the constitution of India. Now if you look at the next question it is based on the PAN that is Permanent Account Number. The first statement is given as Permanent Account Number is a 12-digit random number that is issued by the income tax department. We know that PAN number is associated with income tax. So we can assume that PAN number is issued by the income tax department. But here the problem is not with the department. Here the problem is it has been given as 12-digit random number. But permanent account number is a 10-digit alphanumeric number. The 12-digit random number is nothing but the Aadhar not the PAN number. So this statement is wrong. Then if you see the second statement it says that it is compulsory to quote PAN on return of income. Now during our discussion we saw that PAN was necessary for filing the return of income and it is also compulsory. But now the government has proposed to interchangeably use PAN with Aadhar number. But it has not yet been implemented. So we can assume that only now PAN is compulsory. So this statement is correct. So the correct answer to this question is option B2 only. Now this next question is based on the digital transactions. The question is which of the following is a measure of promoting digital transactions. Four options have been given we have to choose the correct option. Now the first statement talks about imposing tax for digital payments. If this is done it will discourage digital payments. So this is not the correct answer. If you see the second statement it states a levy on merchant discount rate on a merchant having a turnover of more than 50 crore per annum. Now the second statement talks about merchant discount rate as to be charged from a merchant. This will not encourage the merchant or the customer to carry out digital payments. Imagine you are buying a product and if you pay by cash no extra charge. But if you use digital mode you are charged. This will not promote digital transaction rather it will discourage the digital transaction. So this is also not the correct answer. Then the third statement is reduction of some amount as charges for carrying out digital transactions through internet banking. Now here the third statement discourages digital payments through internet banking. This is because it says some amount will be charged for using internet banking for transactions. So when some amount is charged it means we will obviously not use that payment mode. So this statement is also wrong. This means our last statement that is option D is the correct answer which says a levy of 2% as tax detected at a source if cash withdrawals from a bank account exceeds 1 crore in a year. So this is the correct answer to this question which means it discourages use of cash notes by withdrawing money at ATMs. So when it discourages the usage of cash notes it means it encourages the use of digital payments. Now this next question is based on fiscal deficit. It says which of the following is not a reason for decrease in the fiscal deficit. When we say is not a reason for decrease it means we have to find a reason for increase in the fiscal deficit. So if you look at the options the first statement is increase in the disinvestment proceeds. Now disinvestment comes under non-debt capital receipts. If disinvestments are done government will receive money. So it is a revenue. If the revenue increase fiscal deficit decreases. So it is a revenue to the government. So this means there is no increase in the fiscal deficit rather it is a decrease in the fiscal deficit since this option is wrong. Then if you look at the second option it says decrease in the non-tax revenues. Now the non-tax revenues comes under revenue receipts. If it decreases revenue also decreases which means fiscal deficit increases. So this is the correct answer to our question. But also know that option C decrease in the expenditure of social sector schemes it comes under the capital expenditure. Here if the expenditure decreases the fiscal deficit also decreases. Then the last option increase in customs duty. It comes under tax revenues. If revenues increase then the fiscal deficit decrease. So which is also the wrong option. So the correct answer to this question is option B decrease in non-tax revenues. With this we have come to the end of our analysis and question answer discussion sessions. 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