Finance minister Arun Jaitley focussed on TEC—Transform, Energize and Clean—as the theme of the Union Budget 2017-18. The integration of the railway budget into the general budget, the collapsing of the ‘plan’ and ‘non-plan’ parts of the expenditure and bringing forward the date of the budget to 1 February; are all obvious pointers to winds of change in the way the government thinks about the future.
The macro pieces of an economy translate into our micro lives, as they work themselves out through the system. The fact that Jaitley has kept the fiscal deficit number at 3.5% of GDP for this year, and promised to bring it down to 3.2% next year—while keeping the revenue deficit number pinned down to 2.1% this year and down to 1.9% next year—is good for us. A financially prudent government will not unleash inflation and will keep government borrowing in check.
