An excellent balancing act: S K Mitra

UNION BUDGET 2005-06: COMMENTS

The finance minister has done an excellent balancing act in presenting a Budget that emphasises both social and rural issues and growth and reforms issues for industry.

In the process, he has presented a Budget, which after many years, may not have to go through the process of "roll back" and non-implementation.

The finance minister has put significant emphasis on the financial services sector to deliver his economic strategy. The announcements with regard to capital market, pension funds, insurance, micro insurance, corporate bonds, OTC derivatives, securitised debt, commercial papers, etc., are all meaningful and positive.

Reiteration of the strategic locational importance of Mumbai is significant. The announcement regarding gold-linked mutual fund products is a welcome development. It should be extended to other commodities too. Simultaneous regulatory mechanism for the commodity market, including gold, should be pursued expeditiously.

While major allocations have been made for the various social and infrastructure programmes under an inclusive economic philosophy, it is expected that the government will continue to announce important policy decisions and undertake other initiatives throughout the year, instead of presenting a big, bang Budget.

This seems to have been the well thought-out strategy of the finance minister and the Prime Minister since the last interim Budget.