A growth Budget

The Budget speech must include reform measures for PSU banks, a commitment to boost PSU bank lending, and specific measures to resolve the problems faced by NBFCs

In less than a month from now the new Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, will present the first Budget of the re-elected government. Her challenge is to combine a sense of continuity with a promise of change to meet the high expectations aroused by the election campaign. But at the present stage this should be subordinated to the need to give an appropriate tonic to an economy that is showing signs of illness.

The litany of economic woes that she has to take into account is long and includes:

• A steady decline in the growth rate of GDP which has