Wasnøt broke, didnøt fix it

BY darius| IN Opinion | 02/03/2006

You don`t say!

Darius Nakoonwala

For most people it is only a memory now but edit writing on Budget day used to be a really challenging task, even a nightmare if the editor was a nervous sort. The Budget speech would begin only at 5 pm and end at around 6.30.

The full Budget papers would not become available to about 7.30 pm and the deadline used to be anything between 9 pm for the general newspapers and 10.30 for the financial ones.  

In that short time a leader writer had to do what he could. Most used the subterfuge of "A proper analysis will have to await a fuller reading of the Budget documents but…" Even so most managed to get things mostly right.

These days the Budget papers are available by 2 pm. The deadline remains the same. So the leader writers have around 6 hours plus the benefit of expert opinion on TV channels.

And, except for the financial dailies, which are expected to get things right, the rest stumble, none more so than the Indian Express and the Times of India. So I will not waste my time - and yours - with them.

The three main financial dailies - I don`t count the Economic Times as one ever since it turned into a comic strip - took completely different tacks.

The Business Line said it was populist; the Financial Express called it minimalist; and the Business Standard - why bother with the edit when its editor has growled out his views on TV for several hours? - thought it was terrific, mostly anyhow.

So the Business Line said the country is feeling "a little let down" because the Budget is "awash with the kind of rhetoric and populism... unfortunately, the focus is on outlays alone…eight flagship programmes will get the bulk, representing a 43.2 per cent jump over the last year…perhaps the fact that the tax-GDP ratio has risen from 9.2 per cent in 2003-04 to 10.2 per cent in 2005-06 coupled with a fiscal deficit of 4.1 per cent may account for the surge in social sector spending. But the best intentions may turn into unproductive investments if projects are not benchmarked for quality and delivery."

Well, if ever there was a quickie edit, that was one.

The Financial Express thought the finance minister had no choice "with elections looming in as many as five states" and focused on what was not done. "There is no mention of disinvestment, of pruning subsidies, increasing the ceiling on foreign direct investment in insurance, of moving to a more market-determined pricing of petroleum products, of dismantling the administered interest rate regime for small savings or of the `dreaded` exempt-exempt-taxed (EET) regime that taxes long-term savings at the time of withdrawal…on the tax front, it`s much the same story."

Then, suddenly, as if realising how unfair this was, it said, the Budget was "noteworthy as much for what the FM has not done as for what he has done." It then let him off by saying "finance ministers, especially in coalition governments, have their limitations." It might have noted for the sake of accuracy that this one has his even otherwise for "his housekeeping" ie keeping the fiscal deficit low. It should have noted though, as Business Line did, that this was achieved because the ministries could not spend what they had been allotted last year.

So it was left to the Business Standard to serve the reader well. "P Chidambaram has delivered the Budget that the economic situation demanded. Nothing was broken, and nothing therefore needed to get fixed." Its first two sentences struck just the right note. There was no need to read any further, especially since it also noted "fortunately, there were no tax innovations of the kind seen in Mr Chidambaram`s last two budgets."

Thank god for big mercies. 

contact: Darius.Nakhoonwala@gmail.com