By Ruma Dubey

This time of the year usually expectations run high and there is a frenzied kind of build up for the Budget. This time around, the interim budget or the vote-on-account which is just a token, keeping-with-the-tradition kind of Budget, is scheduled to be held in just a week from now – on 17^th February, next Monday. Yet, there is a no sense of expectation; its just a ho-hum kind of Budget; get it over and done with!

This ‘Budget’ is unlikely to have any ‘breaking news’ factor, but what we could look forward to is the election dates, which will be announced on the last date of the Parliament, 21^st Feb. No tax sops for sure – as the Govt is struggling hard to collect as much as it can to shore up the fiscal deficit. Sops to industry? Unlikely. But yes, what we could indeed see is more social welfare schemes, more spend on these ‘vote banks’. And that is what we need to watch out for.

Such Budgets, held just before the nation goes to the polls, will just about allow the Govt to meet the administrative expenses until the new Parliament is formed and a new full budget is presented. This voteo-on-account is valid for juts four months, meaning the Govt, when it announced schemes, gets permission for a spend only for till the new Govt is in place. The new Govt which comes in can change pretty much all, beginning with the Budget estimates. So what we have to remember here is that this Budget is a task which the Govt has to complete, as a custodian till the new Govt comes into place thus it would be pretty immature to make any big ticket announcements.

In ‘text book’ parlance, vote-on-account is the process wherein the Govt obtains the vote of Parliament for a sum sufficient to incur expenditure on various items for a part of the year. This sanction of Parliament for withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Fund of India (all revenues received by the Union government and the loans raised by it) to meet the government's expenses is generally known as a vote-on-account.

But it would be a folly to use vote-on-account and interim budget as synonyms as the former deals only with expenditure while the latter is about the entire book of accounts.

Till date, in independent India, the first interim Budget was presented by Mr.CD Deshmukh, the Finance Minister for the period 1952 to 1953 and the last was presented by Mr.Pranab Mukherjee, from 2009 to 2010. And if one may recollect, Mr.Mukherjee presented a damp squib of a Budget, just setting some allocations for social spend, steering clear of sops even for the infra sector. This time too, it is not expected to be any different.

So what to expect from Mr.Chidambaram’s speech on 21^st Feb? Apart from quotes of Thiruvalluvar, his poet for all seasons, the speech will be more about the UPAs achievements; a rhetoric, victory chest beating talk; that’s all. He could announce some more sops for the social sector and to entice voters, could talk about what the UPA could do when voted back to power.

For those of us tuned into the stock market, you will not miss much even if you tune out this ‘budget’. All eyes will be on the general elections outcome which will have an effect on our life and livelihoods. Assuming the elections will be held in May, the full budget could be presented in July.