THE PRESIDENTS SPEECH - NO OSCAR RESPLENDENCE

By Ruma Dubey

It would surely have been a sense of déjà vu for the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. He was earlier the Finance Minister and would have most certainly experienced the fervor which surrounds a Budget session and might have listened to the President’s address then with a sense of responsibility. Today, he is the President and probably only he can understand what Arun Jaitley might be feeling right now.

Somehow, the speeches by our Presidents are neither motivating nor captivating. Being a read-out speech, there is no real ‘quotable quote’ which come with an extempore speech; something which other leaders can learn from our PM.

So today’s speech was also the usual ho-hum drum. It had all the usual ingredients – economic progress, security for women, cutting down wasteful expenditure, bringing back the black money, GST implementation, which as incidentally put in place by the Chidambaram, to which Pranab Mukherjee introduced constitutional amendments in Parliament in March 2011. He also spoke about legal reforms, swift decision making, and spoke highly about Swacch Bharat and supported strongly the land acquisition ordinance. Development of tourism, increased electricity supply across India and more vigour to Indian Railways were some of the other things he spoke about. All in all, it was a routine speech, with no surprises.

This opening of the Budget session was the easiest part. What waits ahead is going to be an uphill task.  Apart from the Budget, there are 44 financial, legislative and non-legislative bills, not to mention that bills which seek to replace six ordinances passed and this includes the all-important land acquisition ordinance. And this session, like the previous sessions, does not forebode any breakthrough.

The Budget session is split into two – the first, which began today will end on 20^th March and then reconvene after a month on 20^th April, to end on 8^th May. The first part is very crucial as it will present the Railway Budget on 26^th, Economic Survey on 27^th and Union Budget on 28^th.

The market will not worry too much about the Bills in the first half as all eyes will be only on the Budget. As usual the expectations are very high and this session might as well prove to be a litmus test for Modi – will his Govt pave a road of change and progress or merely tinker with same old UPA projects, giving them new names. After the sound thrashing in Delhi elections, social/welfare measures might once again gain prominence.

This would be the first ‘full’ budget in that sense for the Modi Sarkar. Now is the chance to make some real changes, think out-of-the-box and road-roll reforms to clear all bottlenecks and red tape. The days of speeches and catchy phrases are over – the Budget will mark the next years of the Govt – will it be a mere old wine in new bottle or new wine in new bottle, which can become priceless after a few years.