VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

From budget year 2017-18, the Government has decided to merge Rail Budget with the Union Budget. The merger of Railway Budget with General Budget is based on the recommendations of the Committee headed by Shri Bibek Debroy, Member, NITI Aayog, and a separate paper on “Dispensing with the Railway Budget” presented by Shri Bibek Debroy along with Shri Kishore Desai. A Committee with representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Railways examined the issues involved and worked out the procedural details. The salient features of merger and the benefits likely to accrue there from are broadly given below: i. Ministry of Railways will continue to function as a departmentally run commercial undertaking; ii. A separate Statement of Budget Estimates and Demand for Grant will be created for Railways; iii. A single Appropriation Bill, including the estimates of Railways, will be prepared and presented by Ministry of Finance to Parliament and all legislative work connecte...

In Union Budget 2018, as the government has increased the basic custom duty to 20%, the prices of imported smartphones such as Apple will increase by upto 4%. As per the industry experts, the prices may stabilize over the time as local production is expected to increase to 90% as most players assemble phones locally. This step is likely to be in line with boosting manufacturing in India as Apple and Google imports their phones from China. About 75-80% of the phones sold in India are made locally, as most players operating here prefer to manufacture locally to take advantage of the duty differential versus imports. The duty increase would be the third instance in the last 12 months. In February 2017, the government imposed a 10% import duty which it increased to 15% in December, and now to 20%.... Read More

In the Union Budget 2018, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed to set up 5 lakh hotspots which will provide broadband to 5 crore Indians and government has allocated a fund of Rs 10,000 crore under telecom infrastructure.  To hasten the adoption of 5G, the Department of Telecom (DoT) along with IIT Chennai will support the establishment of indigenous test bed for 5G technologies.... Read More