Against the backdrop of gathering clouds of gloom and despair that have blanketed the economy, the best option of the finance minister was to batten down the hatches, cut unproductive expenditure and invest in developing the country’s abundant and high-potential human capital. Unfortunately, this option wasn’t availed – Dilip Thakore On February 1, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered the longest-ever budget speech while presenting the first Union Budget 2020-21 of the BJP/NDA 2.0 government that was re-elected to power at the Centre with a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha last summer. It was a spirited and comprehensive address to Parliament and the nation against the backdrop of gathering clouds of gloom and despair which have suddenly blanketed the until recently high performance Indian economy. Towards the end of her marathon 161-minutes address, Sitharaman was obliged to cut her speech short as she suffered a sharp loss of blood sugar (hypoglycemia). The dizziness, shakiness and arrhythmia the finance minister experienced is somewhat symptomatic of the condition of the Indian economy. But rather than sugar candy — a short-term palliative — the finance minister ingested to recover her spirits, the Union Budget required imagination, innovation and courage to break with business-as-usual practices and precepts. Unfortunately, there’s little evidence of these virtues in the Union Budget 2020-21. “I am mindful of presenting the Budget in the backdrop of two cross-cutting developments: (a) proliferation of technologies, specially analytics, machine learning, robotics, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence; and (b) the number of people in the productive age group, i.e, 15-65 years in India being at its highest. This combination is special to contemporary India. Across the world, if there is a shrinking of globalisation, equally there is a debate on the efficacy of monetary policy too. The efforts we have made in the past five years and the energy, enthusiasm and the innovation of our youth are the ignition required to push forward. The Indian spirit of entrepreneurship which has weathered several storms over the centuries inspires and motivates us. We recognise the need to support and further energise this spirit,” said Sitharaman, in her analysis of the global economic scenario. The self-congratulatory reference to the “efforts we have made in the past”, glosses over the pathetic current condition of the Indian economy. Despite the scandals-tainted predecessor Congress-led UPA government’s rule at the Centre (2004-14), the Indian economy clocked an average annual GDP growth rate of 8 percent. But the BJP/NDA government’s big bloomers — demonetisation (2016), injection of populist sentiment in the landmark Goods & Services Tax (GST) introduced in July 2017, neglect of law and order and reluctance to encourage the “Indian spirit of entrepreneurship” during its first term (2014-19) — have driven the high performing Indian economy to the edge. “All budget speeches are made in particular economic contexts… The economic context for the present budget included the sharp slowdown of economic growth over the past two years, the worst unemployment/ underemployment situation in nearly 50 years, seven stagnant years of exports, declining investment…
