Punjab budget high on promises

SINCE the Punjab budget was expected to fulfill the ruling party’s poll promises, at least some of them, arranging money was the biggest challenge before Finance Minister Manpreet Badal. He has struggled to do that. His first budget differs from the previous Punjab budgets in its welcome emphasis on education, health and agriculture. Like its manifesto, the Congress budget makes tall promises without explaining funding sources, other than the GST. Financial pressure has led to a partial rollback of the Congress poll promise of waiving the entire debt of all farmers, something impossible in the first place. The budget offers just Rs 1,500 crores; the total farmer debt estimated by the Captain himself is Rs 80,000 crore.

Extending the benefit of subsidised power to industry may benefit the beleaguered units but will further bleed the exchequer. Used to the crutches, a patient sometimes loses the confidence to try to stand on his own feet. The Chief Minister did not show courage to limit free power to small farmers as he did in the case of the debt waiver. He expects voluntary surrender of the power subsidy by big farmers — a touching faith in the big farmers’ nobility. The allocation for urban development has been hiked by 103 per cent but that has been done by clubbing Central money for its various schemes like Swachh Bharat and smart cities. 

Imagine a tax cut from a government desperate for cash! But a stamp duty reduction was required. It may hopefully revive Punjab’s long dead real estate, creating some jobs. Opening more universities — even after shutting down Khalsa University — is not a bad idea but the existing ones, sick of being fund starved, too need some care. Spare PAU fragmentation. At the end, the budget inflicts no pain and is rather sympathetic to every section. Punjab remains a happy house, accumulating debt for future generations, happy until the wounds of a high fiscal deficit, below average growth and youth migration produce their own pain. Politics of appeasement has weakened the state’s capacity to deploy its capital more productively. On subsidies, the Congress, the Akali Dal and the BJP are on the same page.