New Delhi, Feb 25 (Inditop.com) The budget for 2010-11 may have some effect on the price line and add around 40 basis points to the annual inflation rate, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Saturday, a day after conducting the annual exercise.
“I do agree my tax proposals will have some inflationary ingredients. It could be around 0.41 percent,” the finance minister said during a post-budget interaction with captains of Indian industry here.
In the budget, Mukherjee proposed an across-the-board hike of two percentage points in excise, raised the import duty on oil and petroleum products and revised upward the minimum alternate tax on corporates from 15 percent to 18 percent.
According to the finance minister, the maximum pressure on the price line came from food items, mainly because of the deficient monsoon last year. “Pulses, rice, wheat and sugar have contributed to inflation. The problem is from supply-side and not monetary side.”
