Budgeting for bills
The budget session of Parliament meets this month with a huge agenda of work. Apart from discussing the union government's annual budget, the railway budget and passing the finance bill, it is expected to take up for consideration as many as 36 bills.

A VAT for the states
In a recent address to the CII conference on value-added tax Planning Commission member Montek Singh Ahluwalia appealed to the state governments to implement VAT from the target date of April 1, 2002.

The moral responsibility of the fisc
The Gujarat earthquake loss is estimated by the government at Rs 20,875 crore while others put it at over Rs 30,000 crore.