There is a silly season and there is a budget season. Or there could be two silly seasons – one when news has dried up and a second when everyone and their uncle has a point of view on what the Finance Minister should do in the budget.www.taxxcel.com
The Finance Minister encourages these views by calling many august people to long meetings seeking the distinguished members’ thoughts. This time, Arun Jaitley has also asked the aam aadmi to tweet suggestions. So from industrialists to economists to reps of state governments, a long line of visitors all arrive in New Delhi to tell the Finance Minister how he can design a better budget – especially for them.
What nobody wants to discuss is that there is very little money available to any government to put to productive use.
This graphic (source: Budget 2015-16) of what happens to the rupee clearly demonstrates that only 11% of the budget is available for the Central Plan (or real development spending), which is