THE BUDGET DID not have any big bag of reforms. It was pretty much on the middle of the road. There hasn’t been much improvement in the service delivery in areas like education and health. Only the allocation has been increased. The accountability factor has not been taken into consideration. There are no reforms in any sector — from finance to labour to FDI norms to agriculture. The government has not taken note of ideas suggested in the 13th Finance Commission.
The one good thing about this Budget is that there is no expansion on the expenditure side. Finance minister’s control on the debt would not force RBI to be more lenient on monetary policy. So there should be less pressure from the monetary policy side on the prices. We should also look at what the government achieved with the money given out last year. A cursory look at any ministry website indicates that no one is really reporting the outcomes.