Are you happy with the budget?
Indifferent.
Best thing about the budget?
I don’t see a best thing. Three or four sops of Rs 200 crore each for the Ministry of Environment is totally inadequate.
What is the worst thing about the budget?
The little frills, like raising I-T exemption from Rs 1.6 lakh to Rs 1.8 lakh is icing on the cake in what should be a dynamic system for the future. Twenty per cent of India is forest land, you can’t give it 20 seconds.
DOES the budget address YOUR FEARS FOR INDIA?
There will be a lot of disappointment and some enthusiasm. The bits and pieces neutralise everything.
If you were Finance Minister, what would you have done?
I would do everything differently. For the food security bill, I would have mentioned at least what is the allocation, so that there are not so many questions left unanswered.
Calmik Thapar,
Tiger conservationist, writer, documentary-maker