With changing times, the scope and range of Budget has increased. Thus, it is not possible to satisfy all sectors
Budget planning and presentation is a ritual that goes back to a period before independence. There has been a template of activities around it which includes the ‘internment’ (for days) of employees involved with the printing of the Budget proposals. So be it.
There was a time when the Budget proposals created the annual blueprint of the taxation system and more. Accordingly, the most frequent allegation, then, during Budget formulation and presentation, was that it had been ‘leaked’, so that advantage would accrue to some. To the best of information of this writer, no such allegation was ever credibly proved.
Circumstances changed, and whereas the significance of the Budget is obvious, over a period of time, many proposals were brought, through the year, in Parliament which, were otherwise, conventionally brought at the time of the presentation of the Finance Bill only (that is the Budget).
Why this happened and whether this should have happened is a moot point. That this happened is true. It was most prominent in the era before the price of hydrocarbon fuels was left open to market conditions.
Clearly in the excitement of the search for exemptions, palliatives and jostling among different economic sectors for attention, a historical perspective on the evolution of the Budget as an institution seems to have taken a back seat.
Reference has been made earlier on to the changing nature of the times. It is no secret that times continue to change even in this day and age. An important dimension of the Budget has become the international taxation component. Tax residency rules for companies or the minimum alternate tax have impacted the reach of the Budget.
It may be worthwhile recalling that the committee on direct taxes, headed by Justice Ajit Prakash Shah had proposed that with effect from assessment year 2001-2002, the Minimum Alternate Tax provision shall not be applicable to a foreign company under certain conditions.
The long and short of this reference is to highlight that over a period of time, the Budget also had to account for various new and emerging dimensions, some them in a state of flux, themselves.
Reference to international taxation is just one example. There are various others, including the concern for amendments to the special regime for offshore funds. All these factors have increasingly come into significance only in the last two decades. The upshot has been the metamorphosis of the scope and range of the Budget.
Thus, it is natural that no Budget can possibly satisfy the requirements of all types of sectors, from aviation to banking to cement to fertilisers to agriculture to infrastructure to oil and gas to textiles to pharmaceuticals to retails and more. The list is almost endless.
That having been said, one thing that has been constant in almost all the Budgets is that they have all claimed to be pro-poor, pro-agriculture and for the development of this country. This has cut across different shades of Governments, lead by different political parties.
Be that as it may, farmers still commit suicide, many poor still remain poor and there is the wide spread of squalor which meets the eye at so many twists and turns of urban settlement that one is compelled to ask some basic questions: Are there sufficient alternate paradigms of development to choose fromIJ Are there any substantial variations of assumption in the strategies followed for Budget formulationIJ The answer cannot be begged.
If the implication of these posers is obvious, then it seems reasonable to conclude that both the proponents of the budgetary proposals and those in denigration of the proposals are really arguing about issues which are fundamentally in the domain of ‘debating societies’ with no serious implication for the directions which a given Budget has taken or should not have taken.
Brownie points may be scored one way or another; however nation-building is another matter. Much of it requires concerns across political colours. Arguments over strategies may be countenanced but the real world choices must be determined by what is the greatest good of the greatest number.
The quality of debates on the Budget needs to exponentially rise.