While the budget has outlined a key shift in the government's stand on ease of doing business, it has renewed focus on creating national platforms like digital and physical connectivity
With a government yoked to one of the largest developmental mandates in recent history, expectations were high from this Union Budget. I believe the finance minister has crafted a financial policy that will deliver the development and pro-growth mandate handed to it. This first ‘real’ budget of the BJP government has given a solid road map of economic and social growth for the next year, while painting a longer term growth picture for the country. Our own report on the Future of India—The Winning Leap—recently outlined what needs to be done for the economy to grow at 9 percent-plus over the next two decades. As I see it, this budget can be viewed as helping the striding Indian lion take a ‘Winning Leap’ forward. The basis of this leap has to be the encouragement of private sector, ease of doing business, job creation for our youth, reducing loopholes and simplifying tax and regulatory structure coupled with tightening legal consequences in case of non-compliance. All this, while ensuring that key segments, particularly rural India, are part of the nation’s growth story.
At a principle level, this Budget sets out to build the balance sheet of the country. Fiscal responsibility has been a key common message both from the railway and Union Budget. By keeping the fiscal deficit at 3.9 percent, the finance minister moved closer to the longer term target of 3 percent but in a manner that recognises that to pump-prime the economy, the government has to invest in the short term. Recognising that rural livelihoods need a fillip, the allocation towards MNREGA has increased. The investments in education, health care, infrastructure and defence are robust and the relatively small but important financial signal to minorities was also essential.
(This story appears in the 20 March, 2015 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)