Budget 2017-2018 New Or Old?

While some say it is plagiarism of earlier policies, others find it strategically safe. A few others call it an ‘uncharitable’ move.

- Dr Anil Sinha

Present budget is nothing but plagiarism of policies

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley came out with the announcements that had nothing much for general public as the government weakly imitated the entire social sector programs of the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, writes

People familiar with the current dis-course on political economy were expecting a ‘populist budget’ from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Keeping in view the assembly polls in five states, they were thinking that compulsions of electoral politics will lead Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare a budget which would, at least, give some assurance of a better life-situation to the common people. But when the budget papers were out, it was discovered that instead of opting for a so called populist budget, Modi chose to continue with the old policies. Some took this status quo as ‘pragmatism’ and others considered it to be the result of instructions from the Election Commission of not violating principles of “level playing field” during polls in five assemblies.

But a close look at the budget only reveals an aggressive anti-poor stand of the present dispensation. If one looks around the economic scenario of the country after demonetization, he or she could easily understand that an intractable regime has only ignored the miseries of the common people caused by the loss of livelihood and massive economic dislocation from demonetization. And the government has adopted this stance in a year which is marked by polls in an important state like Uttar Pradesh makes one uneasy. It indicates a future change in the policies after polls are over. The future policies may be hard for poor with less spending on social sectors.