An Alphabet Soup of the Budget — for beginners and people in a hurry

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The Budget is long on vision. It made all the right noises on the areas to focus for the next 25 years.

A is for Aatmanirbharta. Promoting self-reliance in manufacturing has been a big agenda of this government and this budget too had several proposals to promote Make in India. A is also for Amrit Kaal, the nectar age, which is the government’s term for the next 25 years leading up to the 100^th anniversary of India’s independence. For more, see Vision.

B is for Bharat, the euphemism for rural India, the common man. This Booster Budget has turned a blind eye towards the immediate needs of Bharat such as putting more money in the hands of the people. For related terms, see Inclusion and Inequality.

C is for Crypto assets, which have grabbed the headlines after being slapped with a 30 percent tax. C also stands for Climate Change, which found a repeated mention in the finance minister’s speech and been backed with policy measures. C also stands for Crowding In ­­— the government’s hope that the private sector will also start to invest on the back of increasing public capital expenditure. For more, see Roads and Vision.

D is for Digital, which found 36 mentions in the budget speech ­— from digital banking to digital education to tele mental health consultations. D also stands for Dilution of the Disinvestment target from Rs 1.75 lakh crore to Rs 78,000 crore for this financial year. For more, see LIC.

E is for Ease of doing business. “In recent years, over 25,000 compliances were reduced and 1486 Union laws were repealed,” said the finance minister. E is also for Ease of living. For more, see Water and Urban.

F is for Fineprint. Quite often, the most striking changes are found not in the budget speech, but in the Finance Bill and Memorandum explaining the provisions in the bill (see this example). F is also for the Fiscal Deficit, the difference between what the government earns and what it spends. It usually borrows this difference from the market driving up interest rates. For a related term, see eXcessive.

G is for Green Bonds, which the government plans to issue to fund green infrastructure.

H is housing. The Budget has allocated Rs 48,000 crore for affordable housing. Around 8 million households will be beneficiaries.

I stands for Inequality. The World Inequality Report 2022 talks about rising inequality in India. The pandemic has scarred a vast swathe of population at lower income levels. While higher economic growth will trickle down to them, there was no immediate relief. There was the de rigueur mention of Inclusion, though. Some Income Support would have been welcome.

J is for Jobs. India had about 50 million unemployed people at the end of December, according to CMIE. The capital expenditure (capex) boost is expected to boost jobs, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Also see, NREGA.

K is for Kisan, the long suffering Indian farmer. There was nothing much for the Kisan this time around, a bit surprising after the repeal of the three farm laws. Also, see NREGA.

L is for the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the big Disinvestment candidate. After budget pared the target for disinvestment, there were questions whether this would go through in the current financial year. Yes, assures the DIPAM secretary.

M is for the Missing announcements for farmers, rural employment, income support, and boosting consumption demand. M also stands for Middle Class, which did not get any cuts in personal income taxes, but were consoled with a quote from the Mahabharata.

N stands for NREGA, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The outlay for this scheme has been reduced at a time of rural distress. For more, see Kisan and Jobs.

O is for Oh! — the exclamation for Budget watchers when they saw that the Finance Minister had finished the budget speech at 90 minutes.

P is for the Prime Minister, after patron of many schemes like the Awaas Yojana, Gram Sadak Yojana, and GatiShakti. See Housing.

Q is for Quality. Economists often talk about the quality of government spending complaining about how it is poor and does not create productive assets. This budget has tried to rectify that by increasing capital spending. For more, see Vision.

R stands for Roads. The government has targetted constructing 25000 kilometres of roads this year, a key component of its capex spending push.

S is for Sunrise sectors. The government has identified Artificial Intelligence, Geospatial Systems and Drones, Semiconductor and its eco-system, Space Economy, Genomics and Pharmaceuticals, Green Energy, and Clean Mobility Systems as having immense potential.

T is for trains. Another key component of the capex push and Make in India programme. About 400 Vande Bharat trains will be made in the next three years.

U is for Urban. An urban jobs programme did not come through as expected. However, there were mentions of urban development, planning and capacity building.

V is for Vision.  The Budget is long on vision. It made all the right noises on the areas to focus for the next 25 years. The strategy it adopted is to push capex and infrastructure building, but in doing so it has not provided immediate relief to the sections of the population most hit by the pandemic.

W is for Water. Multimodal transport including extensive use of waterways found a mention in the budget. The government has also allocated Rs 60,000 crore to provide tap water in 38 million households in the next financial year.

X is for eXcessive. The bond markets are sulking because of the high fiscal deficit which will lead to the government borrowing Rs 15 lakh crore, which it deems excessive.

Y is for Youth. There was the de rigueur mention of youth and women. Y also stands for You, dear reader. This is how the Budget will affect you and your money.

Z is for Zooming In. The Budget speech had a lot about the Vision of pushing capex and infrastructure during the Amrit Kaal. But zoom in to the actual numbers and you will see that capital expenditure, including from the resources of public enterprises, is Rs 12.20 lakh crore, a lower increase of 10.4 percent. A related term is Fineprint.