India Today 12th February 2018 | Page 3

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF : Aroon Purie

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Volume XLIII Number 7 ; For the week February 6-12 , 2018 , published on every Friday

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FROM THE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

G oing into the last full Union budget of his term , Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only bet on the farmers , but bet the farm on his rural voters . Articulating his vision for the general election of 2019 quite clearly , he has recognised the existence of rural distress , amplified by a string of farmer protests and suicides last year provoked by falling commodity prices and increasing debt . Hoping to deliver on his promise to double farmers ’ incomes by 2022 , when India celebrates 75 years of independence , the budget has shown every intention of boosting farmers ’ incomes by raising the minimum support price for crops to 1.5x the cost of production , liberalising export of agri-commodities , and modernising agricultural markets . This comes in the wake of agri-GDP registering an insipid average annual growth rate of 2 per cent in the first three years of the Modi government — in the last three years of the UPA rule , it was nearly twice this figure .

The second clear narrative in Modi Vision 2019 is the creation of jobs . The budget has seen a push to small businesses , which were badly hit both by demonetisation and the initial implementation of GST . The corporate tax reduction for firms with turnovers below Rs 250 crore as well as Rs 3,794 crore in credit support to MSMEs could help . The continuing push to infrastructure , with expected investments in excess of Rs 50 lakh crore in roads , airports , railways , ports and inland waterways , is also of a piece with this strong effort — unemployment emerged as the biggest concern among respondents to the india today Mood of the Nation Poll last week , along with rising prices .

Equally clear is the government ’ s belated recognition of the importance of healthcare and education . As Amartya Sen says , no developed country in the world has progressed without investing in these key areas . On education , the budget has announced Eklavya schools for tribals as well as 24 new medical colleges and 1,000 new fellowships for doctoral students . In healthcare , Union finance minister Arun Jaitley announced an ambitious National Health Protection Scheme , which will provide up to Rs 5 lakh per year to 100 million families for secondary and tertiary healthcare . Impressive as this sounds , I am not sure the mechanisms or details of funding have been worked out . The expense could be monumental .

There is a disconcertingly familiar sense of too many announcements and too little implementation . Take the example of the Smart Cities Mission , announced in 2015 , which aimed at building 100 Smart Cities with state-of-the-art amenities . So far , 99 cities have been selected with an outlay of Rs 2.04 lakh crore . But projects worth a mere Rs 2,350 crore have been completed . The rest remain ‘ in progress ’. That ’ s a pathetic strike rate , which doesn ’ t exactly inspire confidence in the government ’ s ability to deliver .

Given the additional spending , meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of GDP for 2019 will require disinvestment and the highest ever gross taxes as a percentage of GDP . It is a tough ask , according to Crisil chief economist Dharmakirti Joshi , one of the eminent economists in our panel of commentators , but not entirely unachievable . The budget has nothing for the middle class and large corporates , who in many ways are the bulwark of the economy . The big question is , whether all this will be enough — especially given that the GDP growth rate is expected to fall to 6.75 per cent for the current fiscal , compared to 7.1 the previous year . So far , the economic environment was conducive , but now oil prices have crossed $ 70 a barrel internationally , and retail inflation has breached the RBI ’ s target , hitting 5.21 per cent in December . Also , there is nothing to spur the investment rate which has fallen from a peak of nearly 34.3 per cent in 2011- 12 to 26.4 per cent in 2017-18 . Unless the government is able to move the needle on this , it is difficult to imagine the acceleration in economic growth so necessary to finance its ambitious schemes .

My own nagging concern is an old one : I am not sure how much of government expenditure actually reaches the intended beneficiary . In 1985 , on a visit to droughtaffected Kalahandi in Odisha , the late Rajiv Gandhi said that of every rupee spent by the government , only 15 paise reached the intended recipient . Has that leaky bucket been fixed ? If not , the electoral benefits this government is hoping for after this budget may not materialise . Elections are not won on grand announcements or manifestos but on real development on the ground which people can feel .

( Aroon Purie )

FEBRUARY 12 , 2018 INDIA TODAY 1