It is not too late, but it soon will be

This is the last column I will be writing as director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. I will focus on the gravity of India’s fiscal situation, which I have been pointing out since 2016. The fragility of central government finances is partly legacy, part refusal to acknowledge and address the problem due to the lack of strategic vision and poor institutional capability.

Government ’s fiscal space is unintentionally shrinking

In 1950-51, total expenditure of the Union government was just 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). As the government took on more and more spending responsibility, this