Meet Team Arun Jaitley, which is working on Budget 2017

Union Budget 2017 will be announced on Feb 1 and this year, people have quite a lot expectations from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Jaitley’s team has been working tirelessly on the Budget 2017 and they will be responsible of how it shapes up.

Here are the people who are working to roll out the best Budget, especially after demonetisation

ASHOK LAVASA, Finance Secretary
Lavasa is a 1980-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre and has worked efficiently in the streamlining of approvals at the environment ministry and it, under the previous government, was blamed for tardy clearances and corruption.

As a finance secretary, he is leading the budget-making exercise and keeps a balance between the expectations of ministries and departments seeking larger allocations and the fiscal deficit goals of the government.

SHANTIKANTA DAS, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs
Das knows the budget to its full and he has been seeing it for quite some time. Das’ duty is to deliver a problem free budget and he also checks that it has enough reforms to meet expectations.

He is looking over the ideas that are needed to be provided so as to put the economy back on track post demonetisation and something extra so that the private sector starts to invest.

HASMUKH ADHIA, Secretary, Department of Revenue
Adhia is facing the difficult task of delivering big tax collections through the disclosure scheme announced during demonetisation. He is a trusted person of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Gujarat and his key focus soon after coming to the revenue department from financial services was to reduce complaints against tax authorities.

He has been able to move swiftly against the black sheep in the department and also take steps to reduce litigation.

NEERAJ KUMAR GUPTA, Secretary, Dept of Investment and Public Asset Management
To dilute government’s stake in as many as six companies, strategic asset sales are expected to be the top agenda. This financial year, Gupta has managed to prevail on cash-rich companies to go for buybacks, which fetched the government Rs 15,982 crore, and the year could end with all-time high disinvestment receipts.

With his help, the government is looking for monetizing stakes held through the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India and push for listing of profitable subsidiaries of state-run companies.

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN, Chief Economic Advisor
Though, he wasn’t figured prominently in the demonetisation process, but Subramanian can create a big impact on the budget. While he could not get the government to relax the fiscal goals last time, a bigger idea of his could find a place in the budget.

ANJULY CHIB DUGGAL, Secretary, Department of Financial Services
Post demonetisation, the government is aggressively trying to catch its dream of cashless economy, with state-run financial institutions at the forefront. Bad loans plague the banking sector and the government may need to find additional resources to meet their capital needs and lessen their burden and this where she comes in. The listing of state-run general insurers will keep Duggal busy. After the merger of State Bank of India with its subsidiaries, some action could be seen on the merger of public sector banks.