A closer look at the Budget

There are some areas of concern, though the government has done well to put an end to subsidy fudging and come clean on numbers

When committed to submitting an article on the Union Budget by 5.30 pm on Budget day, I have to hurry through the documents that are released only after 1.30 in the afternoon, and end up writing on the headline items, without having the time for any detailed analysis of how the numbers stack up. A more thorough examination comes later.

There is definitely one headline item that is praiseworthy. Most of us were expecting the fiscal deficit in the revised estimate of 2020-21 — or 2020-21(RE) — to be tailored at 7.7 per cent to 8 per cent of GDP. That