INDIA INTERIM BUDGET 2024-25: ANALYSIS
Budget has 4 components:
1. Revenue receipts = Good income (mainly taxes)
2. Capital receipts = Bad income (mainly loans)
3. Revenue expenditure = Bad spending (salaries, schemes, subsidies, interest payments, etc)
4. Capital expenditure = Good spending (mainly infrastructure)
So how should a Budget ideally be?
1. Revenue receipts (good income) must increase at the same rate as the GDP (nominal).
2. Capital receipts (bad income) must decrease - or increase as little as possible.
3. Revenue expenditure (bad spending) must decrease - or increase as little as possible.
4. Capital expenditure (good spending) must increase as much as possible.
The table shows that in this Budget:
1. Revenue receipts (good income) has increased by 11.2% - which is close to the increase in nominal GDP (10.5%).
2. Capital receipts (bad income) has decreased by 1.5%.
3. Revenue expenditure (bad spending) has increased by a modest 3.2%.
4. Capital expenditure (good spending) has increased by a high 16.9%.
Finally the most important thing: The Budget is reducing the fiscal deficit from 5.8% of GDP to 5.1%. So overall, we can say that this is a disciplined Budget . . .
