Security personnel with sniffer dogs check copies of the economic survey in New Delhi on Thursday. (PTI)

New Delhi, July 2: The Congress-led government has unleashed a flurry of reform proposals in Economic Survey 2008-09.

On the table are selling government stock in PSUs, increasing FDI in insurance and banks, and opening up coal to private miners.

The survey also speaks of the auction and trade of telecom spectrum, decontrol of fuel prices, reform of subsidies and the scrapping of tax irritants such as commodities transaction tax, securities transaction tax and fringe benefit tax (FBT).

Though meant to be a report on the state of the economy, the survey also maps out the government’s thinking on steps it may take in the budget and in the year ahead.

It said the economy which grew at its slowest in five years in 2008-09 at 6.7 per cent could be expected to grow at 7 per cent in this fiscal, if the US economic recession “bottoms out by September 2009”.

The growth figure could go up or down by 0.75 per cent depending on the time the US economy takes to recover and how normal the rains are.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said “if luck favours, we will surpass” the 7 per cent growth target.

However, a growth rate of 8.5-9 per cent is possible only if the government “revisits pending economic reforms”.

Finance ministry officials said when Mukherjee gets up to present the budget on Monday he could weave in many of the themes outlined in the survey.

However, he may well drop some of the proposals such as opening up of multi-brand retail or delay implementing some of them such as lifting the ban on futures trading.

M. Govind Rao, member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister, said the reforms outlined in the survey “are the intent of the government which may happen in this budget or later in the year. But the suggestions are useful and the right way to go forward”.

Many are looking forward to the scrapping of the education cess and the surcharges on taxes as well as an end to FBT and the transaction taxes in the budget.

The survey also proposed to “incentivise states to do the same (scrapping) with respect to stamp duties”.

“Tax reforms such as removing FBT, CTT (commodities transaction tax) and STT (securities transaction tax), and removal of surcharges will help simplify the process of filing taxes,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director-general of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The survey said inflation was no longer a worry and called for an urgent return to the targeted fiscal deficit of 3 per cent.