Of P.C and populist politics

I, generally, am not the sort of person who cares too much about politics...and I feel myself to be a part of an increasing tribe too. Most of the people of my age too share the same view, I guess, that politics is a quagmire. But then I thought I'd give a listen in to this year's budget, to be delivered by P.C, out of desperation if not anything else. My code was not working, I was already behind schedule for completion of the work by a week. I actually had to understand the code written by some nerd (Strangely, it was titled Eagle) make sense of it and pull it up for implementation in my work. Writing code is much more interesting and easy than making sense of someone else's code. Simply put it was like cleaning up someone else's puke. I couldn't have been in a worse situation than this. So I decided to take a break from the monotony. The happenings in parliament at least could bring some comic relief. And luckily, my friend came up with some site that streams live video feed from the budget session. Well, I just reached office at 1030, checked mails, had a cup of good strong coffee from the cafeteria coffee vending machine and settled down for the budget speech. I opened up multiple windows of my browser - www.bseindia.com to check the market reaction to the budget, www.moneycontrol.com to check the stocks that are most affected, and the site which streamed the budget speech. Ready to go! The site said P.C is on his way to parliament and should be there anytime soon.

The speech began and went on expected lines. Election year - lots of sops. It covered sector by sector, announcing sops for some, taxing others and leaving the rest untouched. North eastern states get more fund, A.P, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh get new IITs. Farmers of India get a 60,000 crore fund for a one-time write off of loans. Not that they dont deserve it - after all they are dependent on monsoon rains to help them out. But the frequency is what amazes me, we cant do this over and over again, every fifth year. Immediately I checked BSEIndia to check how the banking stocks were doing - needless to say the BANKEX was taking a beating. It recovered after the government announced that it'd foot the write-off and the banks would not be affected. Prob it would do something on the lines of Oil bonds issued to Oil marketing companies.

Whether the government is trying and hiding its inability, to do anything towards the development of irrigation, behind this huge dole? After all its election year, you'll have to please everyone. And farmers constitute 40% of the population. But do all farmers borrow from Banks? what about those who had borrowed from money lenders? And what about those who borrowed from banks and rightfully returned the amount? Have they been foolish to do so? Prob in future we might see less and less of the loans taken being returned. The government has set a positive example - Way to go P.C!

The budget also had its moments of comedy, after all these people would behave the way that is India - Anarchy, when unchecked. They had to be reminded, time and again that they are on TV, live. Poor Somnath Chatterjee, he should be having a tough time dealing with them daily. Well farmers dealt with, in a single stroke P.C appealed out to the other major constituent of our population - The Middle class. By reducing the income taxes, he has in a single stroke endeared himself to other 30% of the population. Taxes reduced, minimum benefit of 4k - substantial benefits. Am happy, Certainly! At least my outgoing tax burden is reduced, now i don't mind whether women or senior citizens get more deductions. Other than this single major impact there also has been another impact of the budget on my life. Cheaper Cars - It'd turn out to be a positive decision if I decide to buy one in the near future (There certainly is a plan). Mobile phones costlier, Petrol and Diesel unchanged. It remains to be seen, though, if there'll be an impact due to a service tax being imposed on the stock exchanges. My transaction charges might increase. Its wait and watch on that front.

What remains to be seen is that whether UPA and its allies recapture power at the center in the coming general elections. Will this budget transfer into actual votes? Will P.C get a chance to equal or break Morarji Desai's record of delivering the maximum number of budgets? Time will tell.