The Nobody Wins Budget of 2016-17

The people of this great Nation are eagerly looking forward to the Budget for 2016-17 being proposed by the Modi government on the 29th of this month. Obviously, expectations are running high and hundreds of learned men have aired their solicited and unsolicited views to the Finance Minister in the hope of catching his attention. He must be thoroughly confused. I can't blame him if he is and I don't wish to confuse him with my two bits on saving the economy either. Don't you for one second believe that the views of the people are not heard, especially if they sound anti-national. Now what falls under anti-national is a different matter. I don't know if the BBC would be called anti-Indian now for carrying an article

"How 'black money' saved the Indian economy". Maybe, on the other hand, the Govt. may look at it as a face saver for it has successfully failed in driving this evil out of the Indian monetary system.   

The next financial year (2016-17) will in effect be the half way mark for the Government. Like in a T-20 match, the half way mark always decides how the match will end up. If the first year would be called "hope" the second year would earn the title of "despair". The third year can look forward to being the "turning point" irrespective of the way the economy goes. The Foreign Institutional Investors, or as lovingly called the FIIs have already started walking out blaming the global investment and local intolerant climate for the Modi inning going bad. The local money bags too are too busy spending money on having fun as no work is getting done, and that is being reflected in the bad IIP, inflation and export numbers on the scoreboard.

When Mr. Modi's team came on to the Parliament pitch in 2014, it looked liked it would win the match hands down based on the numbers it had, the opposition earning the tag of "minnows". Well then, the performance so far has been just like that of the Indian team, which always looks great on paper, but fails to deliver when required, and even manages to lose winning matches against the weakest of opponents.

From a cricketing comparison point of view, the "Modi Warriors" have played some very unnecessary and crazy shots that have impacted its performance rate and loss of time. It does not look like the team Captain read the weather and pitch conditions correctly to have ended up in the current situation. The strategic time out is over. On 29th morning, we shall all know of what strategies have been employed to put this Nation back on the rails again. If the Rail budget was any indicator, then the Govt. has foretold a play safe budget.

What can it do? Tax the rich and spare the poor? The super rich in India are super athletic in out running the tax man, and the really super rich wear the super cloak to make them immune and invisible. The poor are always kept poor as they form the vote bank, and each year the exemption limit is raised to keep out about 15% of the population from registering themselves with the tax authorities. Is it not a miracle that the 7th largest Global GDP has less than 3% of its population in the tax paying net? If one goes by statistics, India saw domestic sales of  2.60 million passenger cars in 2014-15 and a reduction of 0.7 million taxpayers for the same year. Great Country where even the poor drive cars and the world wants to know why we keep moaning.

Okay, so adding tax payer in the poor little rich Nation is a super hard task just like finding the right fast bowler. How about betting on reforms? I was laughed at when I asked a knowledgeable banker on this subject and was told that this Govt. has a major task ahead of reforming itself first. It is true that the PM has had a poor home record versus very successful overseas, very unlike that of the Indian cricket team. But, he should learn from the Indian cricket players that all that matters is always winning at home with a few odd victories overseas, as the selectors and big buck sponsors are here and not really overseas. No wonder IPL is now possibly the second biggest cricketing event in the world.

Next month, the world's eyes will be on India. Not for its economy as much as the fact that the T-20 cricket world cup is being played in India. The question next month would be if India would win back the T-20 cup from the 2014 champions Sri Lanka who were not the favourites then and appear to be a much weaker team now. But the issue for this month is - will the Modi team deliver a winning budget this year or pave the way to leave this Nation worse off than the previous Govt. did.