The country needs the rich too: Making a case for lower personal income tax

The forthcoming Budget, if it wants to rekindle growth on a sustained basis, must leave far more income in the hands of the rich and well-off than it does now

The Budget encyclopaedic archivist of this newspaper, A K Bhattacharya, says India has had 29 finance ministers since 1947. He also says that there has been only one finance minister, K C Neogy in 1949, who didn’t present a Budget because he was in office for only a month. He left the Congress with Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

Three of these 29 finance ministers — Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi — were prime minister also when they presented one Budget each. Four finance ministers — Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V P Singh, and Manmohan Singh — went on to become