Decoding Budget '19

The initial reaction after getting snippets of the budget was that it was a lacklustre type of budget, part of this view point was formed on the information and viewpoint bombarded with all media and social media . The usual reaction from an urban middle class like me was that it was useless budget and lacked any vision . No SOP's for SME & Middle class ,which we are all usually so used to . After sleeping over this thought process , I thought over it and now feel that its not that way ,the way I was thinking .

What we have been fed is some tit bits in form of some tax SOP's ,which result in tax saving amounting to a couple of thousand rupees . Looking at a larger picture , The indian economy should grow faster for a broad robust and real income growth across board. I feel if the economy grows at 8% or more than automatically every body earns more .  The achieve a robust economy will need a strong fiscal policy and strong infrastructure . Playing to the gallery by throwing tid bits at the middle class hardly translate into real economic growth . I am of the firm belief that this time the ecomic surge will be bottom up , i.e. the demand will be generate from lower strata of the society and will aggregate at multiple level . The lowest strata of the society's basic demand is for Food , Shelter ,Energy, Health Care ,Education ,security  . What is surprising is that a majority of people in lower income are bereft of these basic amenities even after 70 years of independence . I feel the successive government have been putting a blind eye to this mass base and was taking them for granted . Just imagine that there were 30 thousand villages in india which had not seen electricity after 7 decade of independence , 10 Cr household still using conventional method of burning coal and wood for cooking , And less said the better about the health care and education system .

Modi government has been working hard on basically uplifting the life of bottom of ladder population by going aggressive on schemes like

• Rural electrification 
• Cooking gas to more than 5cr new household 
• Minimum support price of agricultural produce based on input cost 
• Toilets
•  Mudra bank loan for micro businesses
•  Direct deposit of subsidy in bank account 

This has resulted in major improvement of lifestyle of this strata of society , which has been bereft of these basic amenities for last 70 years .The people sitting in the comforts of their drawing room might not be able to see the impact these policies have created on general masses of 'Bharat'. Extending of health insurance to them is a major step in empowering the majority of population . If one sees the policy announcement in each budget than one can see a pattern of empowering this class ,which constiute the majority of the population . Once the lifestyle of this class is upgraded than this strata will fuel long term and broad based economic growth which is robust and sustainable . I feel that Modi government is taking this route for economic growth of india . Having said that , This has also resulted in changing the traditional electoral audience as well. BJP which was always perceived as a party of urban and upper caste is trying to shed that image and is trying to capture the imagination and aspiration of majority of indian electorate . This experiment is reaping great dividend as they have been wining state after state . Economic measure obviously are not the only measure to win election but there are other factors as well and the NAMO SHAH duo is leaving no leaf unturned to win each and every election be it strengthening the organisation at grass root level or playing the usual tricks .

The '18-19 budget was the last for before the election so it will be foolish to expect that it will not have political overturns . The positive I can draw is that ,Mr Jaitley did not played to the usual tricks of giving those crumbs in form of some tax relief to middle income taxpayers .LTCG is also one scheme which I feel should be imposed because its been there for a very long time and the jump in revenue collection is quite huge. Also the fiscal deficit has been in control , some people are debating the fiscal numbers as accounting jugglery but that's been done by one and all .
My major concern is that this government has been lucky that the global energy prices had been really low in its tenure till date and thus helping us maintain our import bill and fiscal deficit,  already the uptick of global energy prices is being seen . Another major concern is that the manufacturing sector is not showing much growth . Also with changing technology landscape , I see the software export earning seeing a plateau and probably will now see a decline moving forward . All these factor will impact adversely in the coming future so the government needs to take measure to address these issues and will have to strengthen local consumption and manufacturing by making the economy grow broad based and at faster pace. India will need quite a lot of foreign capital infusion to achieve this growth and for that the government will have to create a more investor friendly environment by improving the banking and financial sector functioning and lawys , labour law reforms , special incentives to mega projects are some of the ideas which cross my mind.

I have strong inkling a lot of other announcement will be made post budget as well . There is always scope for improvement and so does this budget also has but overall its a decent attempt specially since its the last before election .