It is also batting to expand the tax base through various measures includes taxing agricultural income
Niti Aayog’s three-year draft action agenda details sector-wise expenditure allocation for three years, proposes shifting additional revenues to high priority sectors such as health, education, defence, roads among others, doubling farmers’ income by 2022, creating jobs, bringing down land prices, transport and digital connectivity and building an inclusive society.
The government think tank is also batting to expand the tax base through various measures includes taxing agricultural income.
“The draft has been prepared through extensive consultation with State governments and other stakeholders and has been circulated to them. I will be writing to the States today seeking their comments on the draft,” Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya told the media on Tuesday.
In order to ensure that states feel at home with the plan and also adhere to it, Panagariya and other senior officials from Niti Aayog will also be travelling to different states for discussions.
The three-year action agenda also looks at addressing the high and rising share of non-performing assets in India’s banks through auction of larger assets to private asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) and also by strengthening the SBI-led ARC.
The agenda focusses on urban development by bringing down land prices to meet the government’s target of creating affordable housing. It is talks about reforming the Rent Control Act along the lines of the Model Tenancy Act by consulting the states.
It proposes promoting dormitory housing to meet housing requirements of the migrating rural population which also aims at stopping the creation of slums, Panagariya said.
The action agenda talks about strengthening infrastructure in roadways, railways, shipping and ports and a last-mile digital connectivity. It also details implementation of the National Energy Policy and reformation of the coal sector.
Talking about expanding the tax base, Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy said agricultural income should be brought under the tax net to expand the overall tax base.
Debroy said since he doesn't believe in a rural and urban distinction, the rural sector should be taxed, including agriculture income above certain threshold by averaging it over a period of three or five years. However, it was not clear if that would feature in the action agenda.
The last Nehruvian five-year plan came to an end on March 31 and will be replaced with the three-year-action agenda comprising executive decisions and then the seven-year mid term strategy and 15-year vision document, both of which are in progress at present.
The action agenda will span a three-year time frame involving mostly executive decisions, the strategy will be for a seven-year period and include decisions that need legislative changes while the vision would be for fifteen years and incorporate institutional changes that may need Constitutional amendments.
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 "Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Arvind Panagariya during a press conference on the \"Draft Action Agenda for Three Years\" at NITI Aayo")
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