I have been wondering over my fanatic excitement with the FM’s budget speeches in February every year. Many a times, I left my serious work and came home to listen to the speech and the reactions of the experts. Dr. Pranab Ray started live show of budget on NDTV. And thereafter, it became very popular too. Why have I kept on hearing the budget speeches so religiously for all these years? Was I benefited anyway? A number of times I sent some suggestions too. Once I wrote that the government must provide an insurance cover for all the high-IT paying employees of the private companies to cover their old age medical problems. Basically, the system does believe in communicating back to the queries or suggestions of ‘aam adami’. It is the same today also.

However, I have some questions from the present finance minister who shall be presenting perhaps his fourth budget this year after the UPA came in power.

What happened to the repair of the huge number of water bodies scattered all over the country and the upgradation of existing ITIs that he promised in his first speech? Will he provide the number completed? And if nothing significant has been done why should he keep on making promises? What right he has to emotionally charge the people and then break the dreams?

How many kms of roads were 4- and 6-laned last year by NHAI?
How much generation capacity in MWs got added?
How many additional villages were connected by roads and provided electricity connections last years under Bharat Nirman?

I remember FM promises to cut down the time and cost of doing business in India. Recent World Bank report provides our real performance record in this regard.

“India fares dismally in a global comparison of business practices, notwithstanding all the international attention it is getting. India is ranked 134th among 175 countries in overall ease of doing business. India’s most miserable numbers are in dealing with licenses (155th), paying taxes (158th), and enforcing contracts (173rd).”

“Even in South Asia, India ranks near the bottom in case of doing business (6th) and starting a business (8th), dealing with licenses (7th), paying taxes (8th), enforcing contracts (6th).”
How can our lawyer FM and then the economist PM expect huge FDI to flow in the country with so poor a condition? Can the FM tell the countrymen why can’t this be improved in a time frame? What are the bottlenecks and why can’t that be removed?

It would have been prudent if FM and the government emphasized on actual physical achievements rather than providing the expenses made in crores under different headings.

FM Sir! Please make the speech simple and understandable by ‘aam adami’.

And all these budget promises turning as into non-performing expenditures morose one and me too. And then I tend to believe Business Week’s headline “India – 163 years behind China?” And still Sachs report predicts India becoming the second largest economy by 2050 pulling US down to third behind it. And it may be earlier if India can hit a GDP growth rate of 10% or more.