This year I happened to be in New Delhi the day the Union Budget was
presented in Parliament. I was at the India Habitat Centre for an
academic conference, but much of that complex was turned into a media
circus, with TV stations offering live coverage and instantaneous
commentary from pundits scurrying from room to room. The next day’s
newspapers overflowed with examinations of the still warm body of the
Budget speech and its accoutrements. By now, anything I say will seem
like reading the entrails. The hot news moment has passed.
Many reactions from academic and industry commentators that I
have read have been very critical of the Budget. I read them before I
had a chance to read the Budget speech itself. Perhaps as a result, I
was somewhat pleasantly surprised when I did so. In any case, given the
political events that preceded the Budget, I was not expecting too much.
Finally, having studied the evolution of the Indian Budget over several
years, I have come to expect that the Budget speech has moved away from
being a vision statement, focusing instead (properly in my view) on
setting out revenue and expenditure policies and estimates. Of course
one can infer some important things from these policies—a bit like
reading entrails.
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