UNION BUDGET 2022: Expectations from Citizen-Consumer’s Perspective“Taxpayers money should be used efficiently and effectively with focus on Social Security and quality life-style for the citizen-consumer” said Prof Bejon Kumar Misra, International Consumer Policy Expert and Founder of Consumer Online Foundation, India . #rjspositivemedia

UNION BUDGET 2022: Expectations from Citizen-Consumer’s Perspective

“Taxpayers money should be used efficiently and effectively with focus on Social 

Security and quality life-style for the citizen-consumer” said Prof Bejon Kumar 

Misra, International Consumer Policy Expert and Founder of Consumer Online Foundation, India. 

Preamble & Introduction:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, live in a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC 

REPUBLIC and are provided as per our CONSTITUTION a secured JUSTICE, LIBERTY, 

EQUALITY to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the 

individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation. Let us retrospect by reflecting on the 

preamble of our Constitution as said by our most respected Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: “It 

was, indeed, a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality, and fraternity as the 

principles of life, and which cannot be divorced from each other: Liberty cannot be 

divorced from equality; equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and 

equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the 

supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual 

initiative. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of 

things”.

Our most precious resource and asset is 1.4 billion citizens, second most populous 

country in the world, with an average age of 29, it has one of the youngest populations 

globally. As this vast resource of young citizens enters the workforce, it could create a 

‘demographic dividend’. A demographic dividend is defined by the United Nations 

Population Fund as economic growth resulting from a shift in a population’s age structure, 

mainly when the working-age population is larger than the number of dependents. India 

is home to a fifth of the world’s youth demographic and this population advantage could 

play a critical role in achieving the nation’s ambitious target to become a US$ 5 

trillion economy. India’s unique demographic advantage presents a plethora of 

opportunities in today’s dynamic world. As India experiences this demographic shift, 

along with changing social dynamics and technological advances, the youth population 

will contribute significantly to realizing the country’s economic potential.

The demographic dividend opportunity in the country is the longest in the world, 

accessible for 5 decades, starting from 2005 to 2055. Owing to the change in patterns 

and demographics, India is expected to emerge as one of the largest consumer 

economies in the world. The surge in the young, working population presents multiple 

unique and interesting possibilities for India’s future, in terms of economic growth, 

social mobility, and even a more inclusive and diverse cultural fabric.

The demographic dividend reaps the most benefit through a rising consumer classism. A 

young earning population with no dependents tends to have more disposable income, 

creating a new category of buyers. Companies are creating products and services with 

pricing models that are targeted at this generation of consumers. The availability of neo 

banking, online wallets, and interest free or low interest buy-now, pay-later credit 

facilities further enable the aspirations of a young and digital savvy population. With the 

increase in spending power, the Indian consumer market is set to scale up, resulting in 

higher economic activity.

On 12 May 2020, our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi raised a clarion call to the 

nation giving a kick start to the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (Self-reliant India 

campaign) and announced the Special economic and comprehensive package of INR 20 

lakh crores - equivalent to 10% of India’s GDP – to fight COVID-19 pandemic in India. The 

aim is to make the country and its citizens independent and self-reliant in all senses. He 

further outlined five pillars of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat – Economy, Infrastructure, System, 

Vibrant Demography and Demand. Hon. Finance Minister further announces Government 

Reforms. We need to continue with more vigor and commitment to further strengthen 

the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ (Self-reliant India Campaign).

On 1st February 2022, the Union Budget 2022 and the Finance Bill 2022 will be presented 

to the Parliament by Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Union Cabinet Minister of Finance. 

Given the impact of COVID, and the growing fiscal deficit and strained consumers, 

suffering from unemployment and unprecedented inflation, the government will have to 

focus on a roadmap to bring the deficit to pre Covid level. 

We feel the following recommendations will go a long way in improving the 

quality of life of Indian citizen-consumer and will bolster the financial and 

economic stability of our country. 

OUR Demand Number One is for a transparent and accountable governance: 

Government must announce in the budget allocation at least Rs.10,000 cores from 

CWF to strengthen the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) and its 

activities as mandated under the Consumer Protection Act 2019 and Rules 

framed thereafter.

Consumers always believe in seeking the best value for money and that can be achieved 

only when we have LESS GOVERNMENT AND MORE GOVERNANCE. All funds spent on 

good governance must be made more transparent and accountable. We have made good 

progress in designing and developing technology enabled information sharing but we need 

to make them more citizen-friendly to empower the citizen-consumer to differentiate 

between safe and unsafe, quality and sub-standard, healthy and unhealthy, while 

accessing products and services provided by the public or private entities, without any 

discrimination or differentiation at the point of sale.

There is an urgent need to efficiently use the consumer’s money lying unutilized 

with the Government, which is citizen’s money. A staggering amount of around Rs 

82,000 crore of unclaimed money is lying idle across banks, mutual funds, demat 

accounts, insurance and provident fund (PF). We must deposit all such amounts in the 

Consumer Welfare Fund (CWF) or all such similar funds collected from the citizens as Cess 

without any clear-cut deadlines on its usage or existence. The erstwhile Central Excise and 

Salt Act, 1944 was amended in 1991 to enable the Central Government to create a 

Consumer Welfare Fund (CWF) where the money which is not refundable to the 

manufacturers or traders or illegally collected from the consumers as tax to enrich 

themselves and not deposit the money into the Government exchequer. CWF was further 

modified under section 57 of the CGST Act, 2017. In the interest of consumers let us 

agree to redesign the JAGO GRAHAK JAGO Multi-Media Campaign to build awareness 

on complaint redressal mechanism to enable citizens to exchange sub-standard products 

and services with defect free products or refund of full amount paid by the consumer in 

case of defect or deficiency at the point of delivery without any legal intervention. Several 

voluntary initiatives are existing around the world, which we can improve and make it 

India Centric to promote ethical business practices, Quality and Global Best Standards. 

We must fast track the disinvestment process to consolidate the public assets 

before it is too late, and our wealth is put to ransom. 

The losses incurred by Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) increased to INR 68,434 

crore in 2019-20 from INR 40,835 crore in 2018-19. The accumulated losses of these 181 

CPSEs from FY18 to FY20 comes to a total of INR 1,55,060 crore. Is it fair to use 

taxpayers’ money in such business ventures? However, the Centre’s recent move of 

inviting bids for its entire 100% stake in Air India along with its complete share in Air India 

Express and ground handling arm AISATS, is being looked as a bold reform and a resolute 

effort to exit the bleeding national carrier is a good example to disinvest from such 

inefficient Public Sector Enterprises (PSUs) in India without any further delay. 

OUR Demand number two deals with Rationalization of Taxes to improve 

accessibility and affordability of quality products and services in India.

We need to revisit our taxation structure in the forthcoming Union Budget 2022 

due to the pandemic. We expect a lot of relief on the direct taxes (income tax) 

front and demand an enhancement in the basic income tax exemption limit of 

INR 2.5 lakh to INR 6 lakh. 

The consumer groups representing the salaried class and the self-employed 

clusters suggested an upward revision in the top income slab of INR 10 lakhs and 

above also.

We request the Hon’ble Finance Minister to consider further relief and increase 

the limit of yearly investment from INR 1.5 Lakh to INR 3.0 Lakh in PPF. This 

increase in savings should be reserved exclusively for further expanding the 

country's AYUSHMAN BHARAT Scheme, which is providing efficient and timely 

healthcare to India's elderly, below poverty line and most vulnerable citizens, 

who are real victims of double whammy of inflation as well as COVID induced 

conditions.

Such incentives do matter to the Senior Citizens as many do not have any social security 

or retirement benefits for citizens. India's Senior Citizens population was 13 crores in 

2021. Today, Senior Citizens are facing extraordinary inflationary pressure in the 

aftermath of COVID and need assured security to protect their hard-earned savings and 

earn reasonable tax-free interest from PPF. 

Now let us talk about indirect taxes or called Good and Services Tax (GST) in India. 

The GST is paid by consumers, but it is remitted to the government by the businesses 

selling the goods and services.

We should have only 4 slabs Zero, 5%, 10% and 15%. This will benefit the 

consumers as prices will come down which in turn will increase consumption and 

will be beneficial to all the stakeholders. 

GST is a transparent mechanism of collecting taxes from the consumers and also reduces 

the number of indirect taxes. It does away with multiple compliances like VAT, service tax, 

etc. thereby increasing the outflow. With GST, the outflow has been effectively reduced 

and hence eliminated the cascading effect of taxation (tax on tax). The revenue from 

indirect taxes increased and brought many within the tax net, and thus the fiscal deficit 

remained fairly under the checks. Today, GST regime has entered its fifth year. It would, 

therefore, be only fair to look back at the last four years and analyze the implementation 

and the impact/consequences of the GST. We have observed that due to several slabs and 

complex reporting system the process has become cumbersome and painful, which has 

made the products and services unaffordable. 

The minutes of the GST Council meetings, some of which are available in the public 

domain, however, demonstrate serious disagreements among states on several 

contentious issues including tax concessions on electric vehicles, gold, mandatory eticketing on movie halls and many others. The states are divided in the case of lottery, the 

only item that still attracts two tax rates — 12% when sold in a state and 28% when sold 

outside. Such discriminatory practices and double taxation always leads to evasion or 

unethical business practices, making innocent consumers victims of misleading and 

deception advertisements and Ponzi Schemes.

OUR Demand Number Three deals with URGENT Need to promote the culture of 

Insurance in our country. 

There is an urgent need for the government to reduce the GST rates on insurance 

premiums given the low insurance penetration in India and the fact that insurance 

is intended to provide financial support against any sudden human or economic 

loss.

Insurance sector in India plays a dynamic role in the wellbeing of its economy. 

It substantially increases the opportunities for savings amongst the individuals

, safeguards 

their future and helps the insurance sector form a massive pool of funds.

In the first half of 

FY22, the life insurance industry recorded growth rate of 5.8% compared with 0.8% in the 

same period last year. Between April 2021 and September 2021, gross premiums written off 

by non-life insurers reached Rs. 108,705.3 crore (US$ 14.47 billion), an increase of 12.8% 

over the same period in FY21. Life insurance penetration was 3.2 percent while non-life 

touched the magic figure of 1 percent in FY21. A year ago, it was 2.82 percent for life and 

0.94 percent for non-life. It is encouraging to note that it is growing slowly and steadily but 

urgently needs a process to build the trust amongst the consumers and the Government 

bodies managing public funds in the interest of the most vulnerable population supporting 

social schemes like Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yogana and similar. We as consumers 

strongly believe it has become even more crucial to provide the much-needed boost to 

promote insurance in our country by developing innovative insurance products in our 

country by engaging experts and youths to engage within the Insurance Regulatory and 

Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to continue safeguarding both the economy and 

society against unforeseen risks and incentivize the entrepreneurs to make insurance 

business lucrative. COVID has highlighted the importance of protection and savings, so the 

budget can provide additional tax benefits for protection and retirement products for 

citizens. The dynamic health environment has been a catalyst in the pace for the need for 

health insurance in India. 

In current times insurance has become an everyday need in order to be adequately 

protected against uncertainties. We firmly believe it has become even more crucial to 

provide the much-needed boost to promote insurance products as many of us do not know 

about the benefits and its existence. The budget must allocate funds to encourage 

subsidized insurance products to cover health, old age pension,

livelihood, house and other basic essential needs to make it accessible and affordable to 

the consumers and provide tax exemption to people opting for such insurance products, 

similar to mandatory insurance for all motorized vehicles on the road. This will be highly 

motivating, especially in the light of increasing natural calamities which leave people 

stranded and homeless without any livelihood. This may be done by providing a separate 

limit over and above the already savings under 80C limit.

The government should introduce a universal health insurance scheme as done in 

Jammu and Kashmir to be implemented across all States/UTs in India, which 

covers all citizens of the region instead of selecting individuals.

Parametric Insurance (Index-based scheme) should be introduced, which indemnifies the 

citizens for the losses arising from catastrophic events. The premium can be cross 

subsidized for few years paid from the corpus of around Rs 82,000 crore of unclaimed 

money lying idle with the Government and when a claim arises the claim amount is 

directly transferred to the insured’s Jan Dhan Account linked to the insurance policy as it is 

existing under accidents.

Insurance business can be a big game-changer. Disruptive technologies, product 

liability made mandatory under the Consumer Protection Act 2019, internetbased services and sales have influenced a start-up culture, creating more 

opportunities that young and qualified Indians are tapping. 

India’s large population is also a market for these young entrepreneurs who are creating 

services such as healthcare, wellness, fitness, teaching, information sharing portals and 

similar products that will need to be covered by insurance to cover risk in a measured 

manner to assure quality, safety and customer delight. Government initiatives such 

as Startup India and Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) have further enabled 

entrepreneurship and increased employment opportunities. Around 62.5% of India’s 

working age population is aged between 15 and 59 years, ensuring that India will have 

a demographic advantage all the way to 2055. This is an attractive proposition for 

investments both locally as well as via FDI. As Government has already allowed FDI in 

the Insurance Sector up to 75%, India has the potential to attract Foreign Direct 

Investments (FDI) of US$120-160 bn per year by 2025.

OUR Demand Number Four deals with Quality Healthcare for all without 

any discrimination or compromise: 

It was proposed by Hon’ble Union Cabinet Minister of Finance Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman

last year in the budget speech that Government will double the health spending to 2.2 

trillion Indian rupees ($30.20 billion). The budget was aimed at reviving the economy that 

plummeted into the deepest recorded recession in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It 

was further proposed that in the next six years, the government will introduce a new 

federal health system with an outlay of about 641 billion Indian rupees ($ 8.80 billion). 

The allocated Rs 71,268.77 crore to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry — an 

increase of about 10 per cent from the previous year’s budget estimates, according to 

Union Budget presented February 1, 2021. The revised estimates for last year were Rs 

78,866 crores. This implies the budgetary allocation to the Union health ministry 

came down by 9.6 per cent. The National Health Policy of India, which came out in 2017, 

envisaged that India spend at least 2.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on 

health sector by 2025, whereas a high-level expert group formed by the Planning 

Commission in 2012 had suggested that India should achieve this target by 2020. India 

spent 1.8 per cent of its GDP on health in 2020-21; it was 1-1.5 per cent in the previous 

years. This is among the lowest any government spends on health in the world. 

As a result, India is among the 10 top nations with the highest out-pocket-expenditure 

(OOPE). An increase in public health expenditure from the current levels in India to three 

per cent of GDP can bring the OOPE down to about 30 per cent from 60 per cent, 

according to the Economic Survey 2021. India was ranked 145th out of 180 countries 

(Global Burden of Disease Study 2016) on the quality and access of healthcare. Only few 

sub-Saharan countries, some pacific islands, Nepal, and Pakistan were ranked below India. 

The budget estimates for expenditure on health and wellbeing increased by 137 per cent. 

The hike was calculated by considering funds allocation to the Union Ministry of AYUSH, 

Department of Health Research, Nutrition, Vaccination, Finance Commission Grants to 

States for water-sanitation and health as well. It was also announced PM AtmaNirbhar 

Swasth Bharat Yojana with an outlay of about Rs 64,180 crores to be released over six 

years. The allocation to Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), which covers 

AYUSHMAN BHARAT and Health and Wellness Centers (H&WCs), was worth Rs 6,400 

crore. This was the same as was earlier but double according to revised estimates.

For the last few years, the budget estimates for the scheme have remained the same 

while the revised estimates were half. A target was set to build 1.5 lakh of health and 

wellness centers by 2022; of this, only 75,500 are claimed to be functional but the reality 

is far from truth as they still do not provide the services and patients are made to pay out 

of pocket to access the services at these centers. Similar situation is prevailing with 

Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Pariyojna.

Telemedicine got a big thumbs-up owing to online consultations in the wake of COVID-19 

pandemic. However, the allocation to it remained stagnant at Rs 45 crore and that too not 

spent in the manner desired by us. The Union Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and 

Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) got a 40 per cent more in the 

current year compared to previous year. All India Institute of Ayurveda was allocated Rs 

313.80 crore (revised estimates) last year as against the budget estimates of 76.50 crore. 

It went up to Rs 348.87 crore this year.

Our proposal is all activities under healthcare should come under one umbrella 

Regulatory Authority, dealing with Public and Private Healthcare Delivery System 

like all hospitals, pharmacies, research institutions, diagnostics, medical devices, 

telemedicine, nursing, procurement, distribution and sale of medicines, Health 

Education including welfare of all healthcare workers, regulatory officials & staff, 

medical practitioners, pharmacists and technicians should be assured reasonable 

remuneration and social security like pension, healthcare, housing and other 

facilities.

We need to increase the Doctor-Patient ratio in our country and go for Universal Health 

Coverage by 2022 as promised to the citizens. This can only be possible if we can invest 

5% of the GDP in public healthcare infrastructure and assure full coverage to the citizens 

by creating a Corpus Fund to enable all citizens, especially the large middle class in our 

country to access full healthcare coverage through innovative insurance products and 

make it mandatory for the employers or self-employed entrepreneurs to access such 

products if not covered under CGHS or ESIC or similar Government Schemes or option to 

have both the facilities as a choice to the citizens to access quality healthcare for all the 

family members as per individuals income and affordability as existing in many countries 

around the world. 

Finally, we wish to touch on Emergency and Critical Care in the Emergency 

Departments of both Public and Private hospital should be provided totally free 

without any questions asked. 

Once patient is resuscitated, stabilized, and given all critical support and shifted and 

admitted in respective specialty or Ward, then patient can be asked to pay, if he can 

afford, out of pocket or by the insurance company in a seamless manner. This is 

implemented as a pilot in AIIMS Jammu after it is functional next year. Every State should 

consider such coverage in partnership with the Central Government and announced this 

year in the National Health Budget.

Prof. Bejon Misra

founder Director

Consumer Online Foundation &Associates.

PLACE: NEW DELHI, INDIA

DATE: 25 JANUARY 2022