Annual budget-making exercises are characterised by hype and media and other attention. There is no Constitutional requirement for this. Constitutionally, all that is required is the Central government's annual statement of receipts and expenditure to be placed before Parliament. Without Parliamentary sanction, expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India isn't permissible. In the perennial debate about reforms in India, the core issue still remains the role of government and what we expect it to do. The minimal government role is law and order and some areas of physical and social infrastructure. On this, left and right will agree and so will the ubiquitous, but elusive, aam aadmi.

It is a sad commentary on the state of school education that most of us don't remember what school social studies textbooks taught us. In our federal country, these areas are mostly state subjects. Does similar hype characterise state budgets? Is there equivalent scrutiny of disbursements made to states through the planning commission, finance commission and central sector and centrally sponsored schemes?

Therefore, one isn't interested in the budget to figure out what the government is doing for the country. One is trying to figure out what the government is doing for me, meaning primarily, taxes. But before that, there is a myth to be disposed of. That myth is about the budget pushing reforms, a myth propagated since 1991. Unless reforms are about taxation, what do they have to do with the budget? Plugging them into Part A of the budget speech may earn brownie points. But no more than that.

... contd.