Budget 2014. There has been an endless debate on TV channels since the budget was presented. The way politicians are looking at it, depends on the color of the glasses they are wearing. Congressmen had the most bellyache. Even articulate spokespersons like Abhishek Manu Singhvi & Manish Tiwari made it obvious that their brief was to blindly criticize all aspects of the budget. This gave rise to embarrassing situations. Time & again, the figures quoted by them were incorrect, & Arnab Goswami & Navika Kumar had to repeatedly interrupt them to give correct figures. Abhishek Manu Sighavi said 90 % of the budget was copied from the UPA budget ! The experts interjected by asking, then what are you complaining against ?. The continuance of MNREGA was taken as a big endorsement. They failed to read the small print that the funds will be utilized for Rural & Agricultural development. The economists were more objective. They acknowledged the fact that because of the poor state of economy, & carry forward of the UPA burden of as much as 90,000 Crores, Finance Minister had very little elbow room, & yet there was something for everybody in the budget. Basically the budget was growth oriented without any additional burden. Finance Minister when asked about the big bang announcements which everyone was expecting, said that at the moment the main concerns were the poor monsoon & Iraq crisis (with soaring gas prices). The aim was to lay the solid foundation, promote investor confidence & improve the industrial production which is in the negative at present. There was also thought for Pashmina workers in Kashmir, Zari workers in Bareilly, Silk Saree workers in Varanasi, & Chikan workers in Lucknow. You can judge the performance of this government merely in 8 months, & dont crib then if there are big bang announcements !
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 05:17:27 +0000