Needed: a prior agenda

The finance minister has just completed a round of meeting with three groups of people in preparation for the 2007 Union Budget. He met with agriculturists and then trade unionists last Friday, and with economists on Saturday. One more meeting, with businesspersons, is to be held. This practice was initiated during Manmohan Singh's tenure as finance minister. It has been persisted with by his successors, with the exception of Jaswant Singh. The views of the participants are, of course, articulated every day in various media and the ministry team is undoubtedly exposed to them over the course of the year through interactions with the groups in one forum or another. Nevertheless, a focused interaction a few weeks short of the Budget must help to put the spotlight on the pressing issues and concerns of the day, and help to shape budgetary priorities.

Do the meetings achieve this? They are closed to the media, but participants freely interact with reporters after their meetings. The typical format of the meetings allows each of the invited participants to make a brief statement articulating the issues that he or she considers critical to budget-making for the year, and the suggestions that he or she has for the minister. Some inquiry and debate take place between the speaker and the ministry's representatives, and a brief window is available at the end of the meeting for reactions and follow-up comments. Individually, the presentations are usually cogent and the arguments forcefully made, reflecting the experience of the participants. However, since no formal agenda is laid out, each participant expectedly emphasises issues what he or she considers the most important, often ones which are really outside the pale of the Budget and even the jurisdiction of the finance ministry. Extracting common themes and concrete suggestions for action from the variety and diversity of the presentations is a challenge. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course, but most observers of the process tend to dismiss the value of these meetings as a significant source of new ideas for the Budget.

The view that this process wastes the time of everybody involved may not be valid. There is intrinsic value in a consultative process for policy formulation and, from that perspective, the idea of openly involving various interest groups in the formulation of the Budget is consistent with the objective of being consultative. Instead of dismissing it as an unproductive exercise, the question to be asked is: how can the minister and his team (and the experts) get the maximum value from time spent? An essential requirement is that the finance ministry set the agenda in a formal and structured way for the meeting. It should indicate a list of the issues and themes that it considers most important for the upcoming Budget and advise that the participants in these meetings confine their comments and responses largely to such a list. Some follow-up work by officials should be able to translate the contents of the meetings into a pointed set of arguments in favour of or against specific positions being considered by the ministry. This will make the process more productive and truly consultative, in both letter and spirit.