Thursday, 31 July 2014

Union Budget discussed at IIM Raipur

From L to R:  Prof.Dawra, Prof.K.KRay, Mr.Pradeep Kumar, Mr.Varshney, Mr.Tarun Mishra, Prof.B.S.Sahay, Mr.Anurag Garg, Prof.Pal, Prof. Ashish Garg, Prof.Dash

Union Budget the “Grand Slam” event for Government of India was scheduled to be declared on 10th July this year. It is not that every year people are not excited about the union budget being declared, but this year it was special. New Government , new hope , new aspirations all was in the air regarding this year’s Union Budget. Seeing this enthusiasm in general public and students, IIM Raipur under the vision of our Director, Dr.B.S Sahay and the Finance department of IIM Raipur , we organized the “Union Budget Week” where numerous activities related to Union Budget were being planned.
Building on the excitement that was already there, first event of the week was Pre-Budget Discussion on 7th July 2014 where students presented their views on theme “Expectation from Union Budget 2014-15”. This was a student driven activity and the complete event was being organized by Finatix (Finance Club of IIM Raipur) under the guidance of Finance Department of IIM Raipur. Five panels having a mix of students from both first year and second year PGP, discussed about their expectations from the budget in particular sectors assigned to them. The sectors mainly covered were Agriculture and Rural Development, Infrastructure and Industry, Social Sector, Financial Sector and we had a special panel to discuss about the Taxation (including direct, indirect and corporate tax etc.). The first 20 minutes of this session were about the expectation from the budget in that particular sector followed by the question and answer round with the audience. Eminent faculty from department of Finance and Economics of IIM Raipur were also present in the discussion and gave their valuable insight about different sectors. Students of IIM Raipur actively participated in this discussion and had very good learning experience.
Between all the excitement, we also had budget bites being circulated daily to the students regarding different terms used for better understanding of Union budget.
On 10th July 2014, everyone in the country was excited to know what is there in the black briefcase held by the Finance Minister. From a common man to the people of the corporate sitting in their board rooms, everyone was excited about the changes that the new government was going to put on the table. We at IIM Raipur leveraged this excitement in students and had a special screening of Budget to see live in action as to how the dreams of 1.25 billion people are being unfolded by our Finance Minister. By afternoon government unveiled their plans for next 9 months before the next budget in Feb 2015.
Having heard the expectation of the students from the budget and seeing the budget being unfolded live, it was very important to know the impact and outcome of budget from the experts themselves. To have a critical analysis about budget and its impact, we at IIM Raipur organized a post budget discussion on the theme “Putting India on High Growth Trajectory”. To grace this occasion we had many eminent dignitaries from Industry, Government and Academia. It was an enriching experience to know that how each announcement in the budget has an impact on the business environment  and what was the rationale behind taking a particular decision by Union Government. This discussion not only widened the horizon of students learning with experts touching different aspects of the budget, but it also gave the audience insight of how experts see budget as one of the most important event in India’s business calendar. This event got a huge media coverage both in print and electronic media across India.  
After pre and post discussion were over, a brainstorming quiz was organized by Finatix (Finance Club of IIM Raipur).This quiz included  questions from on the budget terminology , latest changes in budget and some interesting facts about history of union budget in India. This gave students a very good opportunity to test the knowledge that they garnered during past one week. We saw huge participating from the students of IIM Raipur.
It was the starting of academic session 2014-15 and being management student , it would not have being a better start by learning about how the budget plays an important role in the life of an management student. Be it Operations, Finance, Marketing, HR , Consulting or IT , students interested in every domain learned that how important it is to know what Government vision for the country. This Budget Week helped us understand how Macroeconomic factors can affect the day to day working of tea stall owner to a big corporate houses.
Being part of the organizing team and conducting full week of activities related to the budget was a very exciting expedition. Learning that we got from these events were innumerable.
See you in Feb 2015 for another exciting week on Union Budget 2015-2016

This article is written by Gurjot Singh, Co-Ordinator of FINATIX (Finance Club of IIM Raipur) of PGP 2013-15. He can be contacted at pgp13081.gurjot@iimraipur.ac.in
   

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