Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh Budget, an amplification of the interim budget passed in February, would cover just eight months of the present fiscal. As is usual with her budgets, there were no major surprises and no major lures other than the normal allocations for various departments. But for an allotment for Space, there is no special programme-thrust to take the nation to the aspired super power status. The finance minister has allocated 2.66 lakh crore for rural development and held out a promise to build 3 crore more houses for the homeless. Over 20 crore youths have been promised “first salary” from the government when they join the organised sector workforce, by way of a provident fund input. The Congress was quick to state that the minister lifted this offer from the tricolour party’s poll manifesto. How this would benefit the large army of the unemployed remains to be seen.
The salaried class gets a rise in the limit for standard income tax deductions from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75000. From rural development funds, the agriculture sector has been offered schemes worth `1.52 lakh crore out of the projected governmental earnings of Rs 32 lakh crore – set against an expenditure of Rs 48 lakh crore. A promise is that the fiscal deficit would be brought down to 4.9 per cent from the 5.1 per cent projected in the interim budget. Inflationary trends, she has stated, are under control and could stabilize at a tolerable 4 per cent. This meant the national economy, powered majorly by GST revenue, is doing well overall.
Coalition compulsions were evident in the preparation of the budget, with Bihar being allotted Rs 26,000 crore for roads sector development and Andhra Pradesh being given Rs 15,000 crore for its Amaravati capital development. Bihar has also been selected for two temple-related corridor projects. Surprisingly, the budget speech made no special mention of the railways sector even as the Modi dispensation had, from the outset in 2014, done away with the long-held practice of a separate rail budget. Clearly, the government has no major plans to announce for this key sector, though the economic survey had claimed that capital expenditure on the Railways increased by 77 per cent over the past five years. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated after the BJP’s lack-lustre poll win this time, emphasis has been laid on job generation in the organised sector, based on a feeling that unemployment was a cause for the BJP’s loss of votes and seats. Yet, most governmental interventions in various spheres did not really benefit the targeted groups. The governance system and the bureaucracy will undercut such noble aims and vested interests would take full advantage. Mere allotment of funds in itself means little. Targets must be achieved and outcomes need to be measured.
