The budget was somewhat lacklustre but on expected lines

Abstract

The hype about the Union budget of India is perhaps one of the colonial relics of the economy that was rehabilitated in a period of media boom. After all, there is no reason for which government policy announcements need to wait for a particular day of a year. As the budget is fundamentally an income-expenditure statement of the government, in any country with a stable tax regime and expenditure patterns, households and corporate organizations tend to focus their attention primarily on government borrowing (or what is formally known as fiscal deficit). Corporate bodies look at the fiscal deficit to find out the possibility of the crowding out of private investment, and financial market players watch it for its implications on yields on government securities. But India is different. The expectations from the budget in India smack of the prayers of the devotees of the Union government in the spirit of the Sri Sri Chandi stotra, “Rupam dehi jayam dehi yasho dehi dvisho jahi,” loosely translated as: grant me beauty, victory, fame and destroy all hostility.