Budget speeches of finance ministers have normally gone on for close to two hours, give or take a few minutes on either side. For those expecting that the finance minister was about to make any major departure on that parameter and keep it short and sweet, it was disappointment all over again.

Arun Jaitley gave his fifth budget speech today in about 109 minutes. His last year’s budget speech was 110 minutes long. His second budget speech in 2015 exceeded two hours. The mitigating factor last year was that it was the first time that the Railway budget was also integrated into the main budget.

Arun Jaitley’s budget speeches have run to about 185 paras on the average. He did 187 paras in 2016-17, 184 paras in 2017-18 and these have run to between 33 to 37 pages.

There were the usual self-congratulatory opening paras relating to steps taken on corruption and minimum governance as well as the reforms on GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy code, demonetisation, and recapitalisation of banks. And there was more slipping into hindi than before when the FM had to address issues relating to agriculture, health and education – a clear indication that he wanted his message to reach the audience – who will be voting soon.

On the key issue of fiscal deficit, the market had been primed to expect a slight breach. In the event, he announced that the fiscal deficit this year would be 3.5% against the originally budgeted 3.2% and all he could promise was that next year he will stick to 3.3%. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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