The much awaited Indian Budget 2009 turned out to be a damp squib.
The expectations were raised because it was felt that the Government could take some risk after a comfortable victory in the last general elections and are no longer scared of the veto of the left parties, who were blamed for blocking major reforms. Believe me, I am not sure our reforms has worked wonders as many claim to be. The divide between the rich and the poor has widened. The so called trickle down effect of the reforms is yet to be felt by the lower levels of the social structure. And any reform which excludes 60% of the population is not worth it.
It was a known case that the Government was in a deft spot having been profligant during the last 2 years. Quite a lot of social sector spending was announced but defered to the subsequent years. This grandstanding has come back to haunt the Congress, as they sincerely hoped not to return to power and expected someone else to bear the cross of their spend-thriftness.
I am not against social sector spending. People say that this money goes down the drain and nearly 85% is siphoned off. The alternate they say is to divert this money to the business sector in the hope of increasing productivity which will lead to better job, pay etc. But the money spent on social sector spending is very small compared to the sops given to the industry and business. And these two have taken all the benefits without actually achieving what they were expected. In short, money spent on the poor and the businessmen, both end up creating a few fat pigs in the economy.
The expectations were raised because it was felt that the Government could take some risk after a comfortable victory in the last general elections and are no longer scared of the veto of the left parties, who were blamed for blocking major reforms. Believe me, I am not sure our reforms has worked wonders as many claim to be. The divide between the rich and the poor has widened. The so called trickle down effect of the reforms is yet to be felt by the lower levels of the social structure. And any reform which excludes 60% of the population is not worth it.
It was a known case that the Government was in a deft spot having been profligant during the last 2 years. Quite a lot of social sector spending was announced but defered to the subsequent years. This grandstanding has come back to haunt the Congress, as they sincerely hoped not to return to power and expected someone else to bear the cross of their spend-thriftness.
I am not against social sector spending. People say that this money goes down the drain and nearly 85% is siphoned off. The alternate they say is to divert this money to the business sector in the hope of increasing productivity which will lead to better job, pay etc. But the money spent on social sector spending is very small compared to the sops given to the industry and business. And these two have taken all the benefits without actually achieving what they were expected. In short, money spent on the poor and the businessmen, both end up creating a few fat pigs in the economy.
Increased rural spending is welcome. But nothing has been done to take care of the leakages in the system. For want of that, the return on spending will be meagre.
Nothing has been done to reign in the fiscal deficit which is at a whopping 6.8%. India got out of the debt trap it found itself in the late 80's and early 90's with great difficulty. It is precisely the policies followed by MMS Government since 2004 that created the debt trap in the first place. This Government is spending big, really big - but not in the right areas and not through the right channel. The PSU's continue to be a drain on the exchequer. Admitted, it is not the right time to disinvest as that would tatamount to distress sale, but at least Government could have indicated a time line for the disinvestment plan. 9% growth looks extremely unrealistic, 6% should be what we end up with. When the world comes out of the recession, all the bail out packages will create a highly inflationery economy, and we will not be isolated from it. It would have been prudent to initiate steps to control the expenditure and bring down the fiscal deficit now itself.
Some of the Congress ministers gave the right sound bytes on a direction change. Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal, Veerappa Moily to name a few. But old habits die hard. Pranab Mukherjee prefered to take the status quo route on almost all issues when the need of the hour was some out of the box thinking.
We, as a nation, need to debate how we are to move forward in the coming decade. There has to be a political consensus. Unfortunately lack of tolerance of dissenting voices, absence of debate, a culture of indifference and a clear failure of leadership is proving to be our bane.
Pranab Mukherjee, who sought and got the Finance Ministry, could have created a legacy for himself by breaking the convention and paving a new path. But he choked when it mattered.
With Indian economy relatively better off compared to most of the countries in the world during this decision, this was a golden opportunity to grab the bull by the hone and race ahead of the pack. But we, as a country, again abdicted our responsibility.
Great Countries are not born, they are built brick by brick
Some of the Congress ministers gave the right sound bytes on a direction change. Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal, Veerappa Moily to name a few. But old habits die hard. Pranab Mukherjee prefered to take the status quo route on almost all issues when the need of the hour was some out of the box thinking.
We, as a nation, need to debate how we are to move forward in the coming decade. There has to be a political consensus. Unfortunately lack of tolerance of dissenting voices, absence of debate, a culture of indifference and a clear failure of leadership is proving to be our bane.
Pranab Mukherjee, who sought and got the Finance Ministry, could have created a legacy for himself by breaking the convention and paving a new path. But he choked when it mattered.
With Indian economy relatively better off compared to most of the countries in the world during this decision, this was a golden opportunity to grab the bull by the hone and race ahead of the pack. But we, as a country, again abdicted our responsibility.
Great Countries are not born, they are built brick by brick
