Two of our experts were left unimpressed by a budget that was expected to do a lot of the heavy lifting with the world roiled by troubles headlined with a capital T, headquartered in the US of A.
The first take from Sunitha Natti was that Nirmala Sitharaman's ninth budget was a routine affair though it nursed supernova ambitions. She was unclear at first glance if Budget 2027 could have ended up being greater than the sum of its parts.
Our other expert Professor Anil K Sood after his first reading was disturbed by signs of the government walking away from its responsibility of shepherding the economy to calmer waters. He had these ten points to share and they don't make for happy reading:
1. It is minimum government in a literal sense that the Budget underscores. The Union Government Revenue is down to 9% of GDP for FY 27, down from 9.4%.
2. Budgeted Tax Revenue is 7.3% of GDP, compared to 7.5% of GDP. The main reason is the decline in the growth rate of GST collection.
3. Non-Tax Revenue is budgeted to go down from 1.9% to 1.7%.
4. Consequently, the aggregate expenditure is budgeted to come down from 13.9% of GDP to 13.6% of GDP, compared with the revised estimates.
5. Capital Expenditure allocation at 3.11.% is up from 3.07%.
6. Nominal Growth in GDP is assumed to be 10%, same as last year, though the current year nominal GDP is estimated to be higher than last year's budget estimate.
7. As a result, expect the union government to play a less important role in the Indian economy.
8. Share of states in tax revenue as a percentage of GDP too is budgeted to decline marginally.
9. In short, we have a shrinking role of the State in the Indian economy. I would have expected it to go up, given the geo-political and global trade related uncertainty.
10. In some sense, the government is absolving itself of responsibility, i.e., its kartavya.
Professor Sood went on to add that "it is a budget for the global rating agencies. This at a time when we don't borrow a lot of money abroad. A case of extreme fiscal consolidation."