According to a leading economist, the government should resume its asset monetisation project in order to generate revenue streams other than taxes that can assist support spending while keeping it fiscally sensible. "Over time, it will be nice to see renewed focus on asset sales, monetisation of infrastructure assets, and disinvestment as another source of revenue," said Sajjid Z. Chinoy, Chief India Economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., to Bloomberg TV's Menaka Doshi on Wednesday. "Over the next 10 years, India will have huge expenditure obligations."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who returned to office with a weakened mandate last month, is under pressure to increase spending in order to maintain voter support and meet the demands of his coalition partners. The Union Budget issued on Tuesday aimed for a reduced fiscal deficit this year, citing a record dividend from the Reserve Bank of India and an increase in tax receipts.
Next year, the government intends to significantly reduce the budget shortfall, which is required for India to receive a credit rating upgrade. India's debt is now categorized as the lowest investment grade. Chinoy stated that collecting money through the sale of government assets would be preferable to increasing taxes, which could have an impact on demand.
"The beauty of asset sales is that its effective like an asset swap, you are selling one asset to build a road or invest in human capital," Sajjid stated.
The government's attempts at large-scale sales of state-owned enterprises have been unsuccessful, forcing it to limit its program to small share offerings through stock exchanges. In the last budget, the government set an aim of raising Rs 50,000 crore through stock sales by March.
