নাগরিক. Fellow at @orfonline. Columnist at @bopinion, Bloomberg Opinion, & @bsindia, Business Std. Author of 'Restart: the Last Chance for the Indian Economy'.
Feb 1, 2021 • 28 tweets • 9 min read
FM: "Ancient India was largely self-reliant". Well, actually it was a major trading nation. And soaked up an enormous amount of Rome's gold. So bored of buzzwords like "aatmanirbhar" #Budget
A Rs 5tn development finance institution, focused on raising foreign funds. Glad to hear this, very important for infrastructure build-out. Let's hope that it is structured professionally and sensibly #Budget
Jun 1, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
On Friday, the Controller General of Accounts released figures for revenue and spending in 2019-20 that told us that almost every figure in the Union Budget of Feb 1 was wrong by a mile.
(1/n)
cga.nic.in/NSD/Published/…
Based on this data, there are some eye-opening calculations from @AshokAkaybee in this @bsindia piece. Basically, the tax numbers in the Union Budget presented just a few months ago were off by more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
Here is this evening's press release on the 2019/20 and Jan-Mar GDP figures. Headline growth is better than many had forecasted -- but remember both periods included only one week of lockdown. (1/n)
mospi.gov.in/sites/default/…
Some worrying bits about the GDP figures, though. Gross fixed capital formation (overall investment) has actually decreased in India in 2019/20. Down ~3%, when it was up ~10% last year. According to World Bank data, this hasn't happened since 2002. (2/n) data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.G…
Feb 1, 2020 • 26 tweets • 7 min read
Finance Minister begins #Budget2020 by presenting the interim report of the Finance Commission. Frankly, that has far more long-term importance than the Budget. If FC has further attacked states’ powers and revenues, then we will face serious crisis of federalism.
FM's initial remarks are quite up-tempo and enthusiastic about the government's record. Out of step with the current economic landscape. #Budget2020
Jul 17, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
So exports are falling again. Why won't the government recognise that it's trade policy has failed? (1/n)
Scale of Modi Sarkar failure most visible on apparel exports, crucial for jobs in labour-surplus countries like ours.
No growth since 2014-15, while other countries have seen double-digit exports growth in the sector. (2/n)
Jul 5, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
You know what we haven't had in this Budget so far? Any budgeting. Lots of aims, no allocations. #Budget2019
DD-Startups has been announced. All problems now solved.
Feb 1, 2019 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
Piyush Goyal claiming govt told RBI to clean up bank balance sheets. In fact they have spent the past few years demanding the RBI weaken its zero tolerance policy on non performing loans!
Govt has missed its fiscal deficit target. But the worry is that even this 3.4% may have been achieved by fudging data, as the CAG pointed out last month. #InterimBudget2019
