Budget Expectation
- With inflation relatively under control, the finance minister’s next biggest job is to have a budget that can ensure sufficiently high growth during 2023-24.
- To achieve high GDP growth, the FM needs to keep development expenditures high, and contain the “revdi” culture (doles/subsidies).
India’s high fiscal deficit
- Hovering ~10% for the last three years: This is too high, perhaps the highest amongst all G20 countries.
- Reason: Large subsidies and high borrowings (public debt).
What should the Govt do
- Moving agricultural working population (46.5%) out of agriculture: But moving out of agriculture to high-productivity jobs in the non-agriculture sector requires investment in education and skills.
- Improving rural education: Our education system in rural areas has underperformed in terms of the quality of education as well as skill formation.
- Improving skills in some expanding sectors: These sectors include construction activities (infrastructure, housing, and commercial buildings, creating jobs for masons, electricians, plumbers and painters).
- Repurposing & rationalising subsidies for better outcomes: It is possible provided the political masters are serious and ready to communicate properly to the public.
- Imparting modern skills to the people in rural areas: That will enable them to move to high-productivity/income jobs.
- The Yarlung Zangbo, as the Brahmaputra is known in Tibet, originates in the Himalayas in Tibet, enters India in Arunachal Pradesh, passes through Assam and then Bangladesh, before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.