The annual budget speech is a showcase event for every Indian government. For the finance ministry, it’s the piece de resistance. The one day in a year the vitt mantri is more important that the Pradhan mantri. And the man knows it too! I’ve always felt that every finance minister before the budget speech looks like a very 1990s goody-two-shoes bollywood businessman – more or less like alok nath in sooraj barjatya films. Sanskari hain but, by god, cool bhi dikhna hain. Aur yeh mil gaya sahi mauka.
The budget speech is the one that the finance minister presents after posing with that sober looking, business-y briefcase. The briefcase is an old tradition in itself. Like all things Indian, it began with a british finance mister who used a red briefcase way back in 1860. And, I guess, everybody was very impressed! How else do you explain a red colored briefcase being so popular? Anyway, India mein the finance ministers were adventurous, changing the color of the briefcase to brown and even black. British vitt mantris continue to use a red briefcase.
Until 1999, budget speeches were presented at 5pm on the last working day of February every year, in keeping with the Indian government’s colonial heritage. This was changed in 1999 by Yashwant Sinha who started presenting the budget at 11am. Shayad unhe lagaa ki kaam ki baat subha kar lein toh behtar hai. 2017 onwards, Arun Jaitley has switched to presenting the union budget on the 1st of February. Nobody still knows for sure why.
The budget determines how money will be handled by the government. So, like Alok nath planning his family’s many shaadis, antakshari parties and song sequences, the government has to allocate funds based on priorities. And like Alok Nath, the govt also wants to be sanskari…sabka saath, sabka vikas and all that.
Most importantly for us, the annual budget can either augment or diminish our incomes. Millions of people gather around their tv sets or watch on their mobile phones the live telecast of the budget. Yahi woh ek din hai jab India ka cricket match bhi log ignore maarte hain, because we all want to know if our 80 C exemption limit has been increased. And how much our home loan is going to cost us. Or do we have enough funds to go on a 2 week honeymoon trip to Australia. Varna Ooty ya Shimla hi chale jaayein phir se, like when we started dating.
The speech itself is divided into two parts – A and B. Part A usually contains an overview of the state of the Indian economy. Progress report hi maan lijiye isko. Aur opposition bhi bhaita hai parliament mein, real time feedback dene ke liye. Oppostiion parties are usually never happy with the state of the economy. Pata nahi kyun. Anyway, part A also contains major economic policies that the government intends to initiate. For instance, big ticket schemes like NREGA, NRHM, Bharat Nirman, JNNRUM etc. were announced in part A of the budget speech. This first half also contains estimates on the government’s expenditure as well as the fiscal deficit. Fiscal deficit is the shortfall where the govt doesn’t have enough money to spend on its schemes.
Part B contains the tax proposals that the government wishes to implement. This includes both direct and indirect taxes. Income Tax and customs duty are also covered in Part B. Speaking of indirect taxes, 2018 will be the first budget by Arun Jaitley after GST came into effect. GST is the replacement for many different indirect taxes, toh speech kay eh part utna lamba nahi hoga hopefully. But, since GST is the govt’s showpiece, we can expect ki jaitley ji kuch zyaada modesty bhi nahi dikhayenge. All things considered, this year’s budget speech should be an interesting one, because it’s the one before the huge elections in 2019. It might have some remarkable consequences.
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