A hundred days isn’t really enough to evaluate the policies of a regime pertaining to finance and economy, but it is enough so far as to get the drift. And an overview of the last three months possibly hints at two trends. Firstly, there is no major course correction that the government plans to put in place to address the crisis that is simmering. One would have imagined that the government would use the budget as an opportunity to display its commitment to address a few fundamentals. But the compulsions of crony capital and commitment to market fundamentalism meant that we were offered more of the same. The word ‘rights’ doesn’t appear once in the budget speech. The word ‘welfare’ once. And the word ‘inflation’ only thrice in a para at the beginning. The word ‘temple’ appears more than twice the number of times the word inflation.
The alarming condition of job creation, the manufacturing slump, the sticky rates of inflation, the massive write-offs for big corporations, and the mindless infrastructural push that are not sensitive to ecology and climate concerns are all trends that continue.
And secondly, on at least some issues, the government, unlike in its previous two terms, is being forced to review and pull back its moves in the face of opposition heat. From the Broadcasting bill to the Waqf board amendment, from the pension scheme to agnipath, from GST on life insurance to property tax rules, there are moves that the government have had to be tentative about. Having said that, it, however, continues to remain intolerant of questions and critical feedback. For instance, very recently, the 14-member Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) headed by noted economist and former chief statistician Pronab Sen was dissolved by the government allegedly after its members questioned the delay in conducting the census.
This more or less sums up the approach of the government in the domain of finance and economy. Let’s analyse both of these trends a little more closely.
Read and download the report here: 100 Days of Economy & Finance More of the same. But also forced reversals on some fronts