Sir,
The truth is hidden behind numbers. The Union Government’s 2017-18 budget has little to offer to push the country’s economic growth and human happiness. The year-end demonetisation seems to have choked the Government’s expenditure estimates in the coming financial year. A modest seven to eight per cent retail price inflation, which looks natural once the current currency shortage in the market disappears and the money supply with the public grows to become normal, may actually contract the Government spending on development during the next fiscal. The 2017-18 budget expenditure is far below the expectation and requirement for a 7.5 to eight per cent economic growth. At best, it is a shoe string budget that merely seeks to meet the minimum expenditure projections of various ministries of the Government through the current difficult times. In sectors such as healthcare, despite an additional allocation of Rs. 10,000 crore, the expenditure as percentage of the country’s GDP comes down from this year’s level. There is no need to read much into the ten key steps the Government professed in the budget for 2017-18 to push the country’s output growth in agriculture, infrastructure, MSME sector, manufacturing and export. The budget will help these sectors little. It will also contribute little towards higher employment generation and creation of more individual income to generate demand and growth.
Yours etc….
Natoo Banerjee
on email
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