-Frontline.in The Budget lacks any serious effort to address the main issues of unemployment, agrarian distress and falling incomes, revealing a high level of official insensitivity. A Budget during a time of recession, increasing unemployment, agrarian distress, falling incomes, demand constraint and malnutrition would have done well to first acknowledge the mess that policies have created and then taken steps to provide employment, boost rural incomes, increase purchasing power and thereby demand. Coming...

-Financial Express Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s road building scheme for rural India could also hold a key towards uplifting farm economy. FM in her budget announcement said that the centre will “encourage” state governments if they implement reforms for agriculture. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s road building scheme for rural India could also hold a key towards uplifting farm economy. Under the third phase of PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana), the government...

-Newsclick.in Punjab is industrialised and its agriculture is mechanised. The state is in the grip of a downturn which has hurt the migrant poor most. The Union Budget is the talk of the town, but the economic downturn is not. The prevailing economic situation has hurt all sectors of the business and economy. One symptom of the downturn is that unemployment has broken a 45-year record. Even if these facts are known,...

-Livemint.com * The budget barely increased funding to social welfare schemes at a time India’s poorest desperately need succour * At the beginning of every financial year, social schemes start with arrears, leading to delayed payments. To break this vicious cycle, funding needs to be increased MUZAFFARPUR (BIHAR): "Dena hi padega BDO, dena hi padega Har haath ko kaam aapko, dena hi padega." (You have to, oh BDO, you have to You have to give work...

-Decoding the Priorities: An Analysis of Union Budget 2020-21, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), February 2020 The publication presents an analysis of the priorities in Union Budget 2020-21, both on public expenditure and resource mobilisation front. It has been divided broadly into five chapters. The first chapter focuses on a host of important aspects under Resource Mobilisation, like domestic tax policy, international taxation policy, financial transparency, and Centre-State...