Sundeep Babulal Jain, Bangalore

With 20-20 matches and the economic recovery catching heat, people expect the Finance Minister to present a budget as a commentator in a 20-20 match, with lots of fours and sixes. But that seem a distant possibility as the hands of the government are tied with the fiscal deficit of 6.8% for FY10. At the same time this opportunity cannot be wasted to show the world, that the country is committed to reforms.

The first thing that needs to be looked into is the infrastructure development, a must for long term sustainability. This can be done by allocating more of the government expenditure towards asset creation which can provide opportunity to people to contribute and also benefit from the country’s growth rather than direct give-aways. Pace-up the divestment programme for setting right the government finances and thereby in a way making funds available to the corporate sector at a lower price.

Undertake reforms that do not hurt the government pockets but at the same time can go a long way in fuelling economic growth like land reforms, increase in foreign investment ceilings in sectors like insurance, etc. Sectors like education have to be given priority and a mechanism for reducing leakages from the allocations to various programmes has to be implemented.

Regards
Sundeep Babulal Jain
2nd Year MBA Student
ICFAI Business School, Bangalore
sandy_jain000@yahoo.com