In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...

The common man, whose concerns were at the heart of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s two successful election campaigns, doesn’t seem to be the focus of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget. Experts and political analysts say the aam admi doesn’t appear to be the dominant concern anymore, prompting speculation about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi’s role. She has thus far been setting the UPA’s social agenda through the National Advisory Council...

An opportunity has been forsaken to strengthen our economic fundamentals while improving the lives of the people, increasing the divide between India Shining and India Suffering. While the people were hoping for relief in the current budget, the Finance Minister was faced with the task of reversing the slowing growth rate and raging inflation. He had a choice in this budget. He, however, chose a path that is going to worsen...

Food subsidy allocation in the budget for 2012-13 is way short of what is required for the implementation of the proposed National Food Security Act, despite a categorical assurance by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government would “fully provide” food subsidy to administer UPA's flagship legislation. In fact, the regular food subsidy requirement has been cut. While declaring that the government proposed to phase out subsidies in fertilizer and petroleum...

-The Hindu   The ambitious and controversial Unique ID scheme — Aadhaar — received a double boost in this year's budget: not only did Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee sanction Rs. 1,758 crore to enrol 40 crore more residents, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also emphasised that the scheme would soon become the main channel through which people could access a wide variety of budget benefits. “I propose to allocate adequate funds to complete...