Key issues come up for detailed study

BUDGET & THE ECONOMY

Committees will deal with forward trading, telecom, farm debt, environment.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced the formation of four committees to give recommendations on the major issues of forward trading, farm debt, telecom taxes and the environment.

One of them is a committee headed by Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, which will go into the future of forward trading in key commodities and give its report in two months.

Until then, the Forward Marketing Commission will not allow futures trading in wheat and rice. The committee's formation is seen as another attempt to check inflation.

Chidambaram said the government had appointed another committee under senior scientist R Radhakrishna to examine all aspects of agricultural indebtedness.

The committee has held consultations across the country and is finalising its recommendations. The government would act on the report as soon as it was received, he said.

The minister also proposed the constitution of a committee to study the current tax structure in telecom. This is after repeated complaints from the telecommunications industry on the problems with multifarious taxes, charges and fees applicable to the industry. It wanted a unified, single levy on revenue.

"Currently, we have 8 or 9 levies, which aggregate to over a third of a customer's bill. This high level of total taxation is retarding the expansion of services, chiefly to unserved areas. It is also a very inefficient method of taxation. We hope the committee will execute its mandate at the earliest, and this change will constitute a major reform for the Indian telecom sector," said Sanjeev Aga, managing director, Idea Cellular.

The fourth committee proposed by Chidambaram will study the impact of climate change on India and identify the measures that may have to be taken in the future.

The suggestion is in the light of India's vulnerability to green house gas emissions.