A prudent Budget that is unlikely to revive faltering economic growth

Fiscal prudence has been given priority over fiscal stimulus which will contain the growth of debt liabilities, but it will not provide the strong public expenditure push required for reviving growth

Budget speeches are misleading. They highlight at great length populist expenditure schemes, even if the allocations involved are quite meagre, and then quickly go over awkward issues such as overshooting fiscal deficit targets or tax measures that Corporate India or the ‘middle class’ may complain about. Nirmala Sitharaman also spoke at great length about various expenditure schemes, so much so that she was unfortunately quite exhausted and had to cut short her speech.

She started by elaborating on the government’s initiatives for agriculture and allied activities and the social sectors. It turns out that the increase in spending is indeed