Introduction
A subsidy, often viewed as the converse of a tax, is an instrument of fiscal policy. Derived from the Latin word 'subsidium', a subsidy literally implies coming to assistance from behind. However, their beneficial potential is at its best when they are transparent, well targeted, and suitably designed for practical implementation.
Like indirect taxes, they can alter relative prices and budget constraints and thereby affect decisions concerning production, consumption and allocation of resources. Subsidies in areas such as education, health and environment at times merit justification on grounds that their benefits are spread well beyond the immediate recipients, and are shared by the population at large, present and future. For many other subsidies, however the case is not so clear-cut. Arising due to extensive governmental participation in a variety of economic activities, there are many subsidies that shelter inefficiencies or are of doubtful distributional credentials. Subsidies that are ineffective or distortionary need to be weaned out, for an undiscerning, uncontrolled and opaque growth of subsidies can be deleterious for a country's public finances.
In India, as also elsewhere, subsidies now account for a significant part of government's expenditures although, like that of an iceberg, only their tip may be visible. These implicit subsidies not only cause a considerable draft on the already strained fiscal resources, but may also fail on the anvil of equity and efficiency as has already been pointed out above.
In the context of their economic effects, subsidies have been subjected to an intense debate in India in recent years. Issues like the distortionary effects of agricultural subsidies on the cropping pattern, their impact on inter-regional disparities in development, the sub-optimal use of scarce inputs like water and power induced by subsidies, and whether subsidies lead to systemic inefficiencies have been examined at length. Inadequate targeting of subsidies has especially been picked up for discussion.
This paper based on the study conducted by Srivastava, Sen et al. under the aegis of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, and the discussion paper brought out by Department of Economic Affairs( Ministry of Finance) in 1997, aims to provide a comprehensive estimate of budget-based subsidies in India. In addition, recent trends have been included from the Economic Survey for the year 2004-05. Attention is focused on bringing out the magnitude of the implicit subsidies, in addition to the explicit ones, to form an idea as to how heavy a draft do they constitute on the fiscal resources of the economy.
Read more about this topic: Subsidies In India
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