Hopes ride high, will FM be able to rise to expectations?

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: Expectations galloped to unprecedented heights a day ahead of Union Finance Minister’s Nirmala Sitharaman’s last full-fledged budget for the current term of the Narendra Modi government which is expected to end in 2024 with Income Tax sops and cuts, stimulus packages to spur growth and employment generation and measures to alleviate growing poverty, high on the wish-list of most Indians.

The FM will also have to contend with a very crucial factor-almost a third of Indian states-nine in all will go to Assembly polls this year in what most poll analysts consider is a mini general election ahead of the crucial Parliament polls in 2024. What will she pull out of her bag of goodies to keep a substantial proportion of the population in good stead after two years of untold suffering, galloping prices and joblessness is the big question.

There are many who expect Ms Sitharaman to hike the Income Tax limits to keep the middle classes happy, The housing sector is expected to get a big boost with huge fund infusion expected for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to improve housing among weaker sections.

But in a nation still grappling with grave problems after the pandemic, there are others who wonder if the FM will have her sights clearly set on the hopes Indians cherish-of getting life back to normal, of getting their earnings restored and the lives of their kids back on track. There has been no sign of the poorest of the poor being on the government’s radar with the MNREGS, a beacon of hope for the jobless, being deprived of the required funds with allocations cuts.

The discrimination against states which do not have BJP governments in the saddle, has been continuing for quite some time; Will this be another budget of empty promises to lure the voting populace or a carefully crafted financial exercise to restore the glow in the Indian economy?