The Hindu Business Line : Not rocking the boat

Mr P. Chidambaram has chosen to present an as-is-where-is Budget. He has missed a great opportunity to capitalise on the buoyant spirit in every sector.

But for a few question marks here and there, especially over infrastructure, agriculture and manufacture, the Economic Survey had made it look as if the country had nowhere to go but up.

There can be no doubt that, taking the rough with the smooth, the economy is booming and the atmospherics, in particular, have never been more upbeat.

As far as one can peer into the future, the ever-broadening and beckoning vistas seem to lead to the broad, sunlit uplands of the Promised Land.

The Budget, on the contrary, has little that galvanises attention or fires the imagination with any kind of lofty vision.

Yes, it mentions the glowing prospect of the country approaching 10 per cent of economic growth and 1.5 per cent of world trade, notes the impressive savings rate and capital formation, takes pride in holding the price line and containing the revenue and fiscal deficits, despite substantially larger allocations than previous years to social sectors and in that context, longingly lingers on the scope of the eight "flagship" programmes and the status of Bharat Nirman.

One could see many MPs and even some Ministers yawning at the iteration of the many schemes one after the other, and it is doubtful how many listening to that part of the speech were able to comprehend the full significance of all those crores coming in a steady stream.

The news that nearly 96 per cent of the Golden Quadrilateral is complete, farm credit has doubled and agriculture has shown some forward movement (though not anywhere near the optimum) is welcome, but these and other isolated accomplishments do not form the dots connecting which one gets the larger picture.

True, the Budget, while leaving the direct taxes alone, prunes and pares the indirect tax rates, and does some chipping and chopping of the fringe benefit tax regime. This could have been the cause of minor excitement and nothing more.

On the whole, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, has chosen to present an as-is-where-is Budget which is for the record and whose principal aim seems not to rock the economic boat.

In the process, he has missed the great opportunity he had to encapsulate, and capitalise on, the buoyant spirit suffusing the country in every sector.

Apart from the disappointment on this score, he inexplicably either is silent, or only fleetingly touches, on a number of pressing concerns that, if unaddressed, can negate the impact of all the other positive factors.

For instance, what plans does he have to induct and invest the $445 billion in the next 10 years to create a network of world-class infrastructure without which progress on all other fronts would be pipe-dreams?

Especially, what steps are being contemplated to make good the most worrisome shortfall in power? The Economic Survey refers to the menacing risks on the oil front.

The Budget offers no definitive remedy. And, there is no gameplan in the Budget on the further thrust that he proposes to give to the subsequent phases of economic reforms and on the efforts he proposes to make to overcome the misguided opposition to them.

Mr Chidambaram need not have been so restrained and guarded. The symbiosis between him and the prime movers of the economy is the most productive partnership yet the country has seen in recent times.

If, as was convincingly brought home to the participants of the Davos Economic Forum, "India is everywhere", a large measure of credit should go to his persuasive, pleasing and transparent persona.

All the economic players in India and abroad, the constituents of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and even the dissenting diehards of one or the other school of thought feel entirely at home and at ease with him.

With this advantage, he has been able to bring about a transformation in the nature of the Budget process itself. Instead of being viewed as a dry-as-dust litany of receipts and expenditures, his Budgets had come to constitute clearly laid out road maps.

There was, therefore, nothing that need have stopped him from going all out to make the Budget a vehicle for his vision of the future, and call upon the people, civil society and political cohorts and opponents to pull together like one person to help the nation join the big league even earlier than the date of 2020 stipulated by the President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.