Budget 2008

The budget for the financial year 2008-09 is out. All eyes were on our FM, Mr. P. Chidambaram too see what he would bring this time around for the country. This will be the last budget for the Congress party in its present term. He came out all guns blazing. His proposal to waive the Rs.60,000 crore loan that the farmers were facing was the defining moment. It augurs well for the farmers across India because India has been doing extremely well on the technology front and is being touted to be the next super power but it has totally ignored the Agricultural sector.

Year in and year out, different governments have come into power and one of the biggest and common problems they faced was the suicides of farmers. Nothing was being done for them. Inflation has been on the rise and farmers were finding it difficult to purchase fertilizers, seeds, tractors and other machinery they needed. Given the problem of global warming and unexpected and untimely rains have destroyed their crops everytime. The farmers were finding it difficult to make enough money to pay up the loans they were taking from banks. The recovery agents employed by these banks have been heartless and the farmers not able to take the pressure from them have resorted to suicide as the only solution to their inability to pay up the debt. But these banks don’t leave the families behind either.

This present proposal of the waiver has brought joy and respite to a lot of the farmer’s families across India and could help the congress to get a huge chunk of votes to go in for another 5 year term. People are calling this move to be smart “Poll”-itical move. Which government doesn’t want to make a last attempt to retain power before its term comes to an end? This is Congres’s attempt.

The big question tough is, how will our FM clear this Rs. 60,000 crore that he now owes the banks. He proposed that over the next 3 years he will create enough liquidity to be able to pay up this gargantuan amount. I don’t think this is impossible though. He has sustained the year on year growth of 9% successfully and if he has the capacity to do this, im sure he will definitely be able to clear that huge amount. He has been one of the most charismatic Finance Minister’s ever. He has brought a lot of changes to the Indian economy. He has managed to keep the inflation rates low and the growth rate to be nearly consistent and on the rise every year. Now that’s a very difficult task. If he could do this he can definitely clear the amount.

It will be really sad if the Congress party fails to stay on top for another term. The reasons if they don’t make it will be different though. They have been inefficient in taking care of a few policies. Very regrettable. This has been the only government which has shown apathy to the farmers and also have worked on things that were of utmost importance and not just go with the flow. Technological development is of importance no doubt, but that’s not the end all and be all of everything. There are other aspects like the agricultural sector, educational sector and others which require equal attention. The Congress party has maintained this balance very well. There was enough allotment of the GDP to areas like education and infrastructure development and this has led to the overall development of India and have made it a force to reckon with.

There are other aspects to the budget as well like the raising of taxable income to 1.5lakhs for men and 1.8 lakhs for women and other freebies to senior citizens and other things some of which were welcome while others were not taken well, but this waiver is the mother of all proposals. Hope the agricultural sector now develops on par with the technological development. When that happens, India will be on top of the world. Nobody will be able to compete with it.