Not a 25-year blueprint

This is not a Budget that supports economic recovery, whether through supporting aggregate demand, or through expansionary stimulus

I was hopeful, if somewhat perplexed, by the assertion in the Economic Survey that there was enough fiscal space to ramp up capital spending. If true, this would mean that the government had found a way out of the ongoing fiscal crisis that I have been highlighting since 2019. My analysis of the macro fiscal scenario in the 2022-23 Budget, unfortunately, shows that the fiscal crisis continues to cripple the Centre’s public finances. Net tax revenues in FY22 (Rs 2. 2 trillion) are higher than the budgeted target of 7.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), but this is