The emphasis on PPP model is in the right direction

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: The large budgetary support in general of plan and investment, especially the funds made available to the IIFCL, the 23% increase in the NHAI spending, the 87% increase in JNNURM outlay, the increase on account of housing for the poor, the humongous increase in expenditure on the Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (APDRP) of 160%, should bring cheers to the producers, investors and financers of infrastructural equipment and services on roads, urban services and power equipment especially distribution and transmission equipment manufacturers. The large rises on doles, under the NREGA, Bharat Nirman, Adarsh Gram while their efficiency would be poor, and much of the spending may not even reach the poor, the diversion and misspending would do the job of demand creation. These programmes especially the NREGA, while it could have been much better, are a significant improvement over the earlier sop programmes that the Indian poor lived with over the last 35 years. The markets should rise as the demand kicks in.

Most significant though are the plans to make for transparent subsidisation and direct subsidies. If these can be done through endowments defined and coded on chip cards, and tradability is allowed then the entire petroleum and electricity sectors (not to speak of fertiliser and food) can be liberated for private investments and the inefficiency of the state owned enterprises in delivery/production, and the very large distortions in use that waste as much as 6% of GDP can be pulled in. Unlike last budget, this budget mentions direct subsidies more strongly and hopefully the bureaucracy would be able to reap the low hanging fruits in direct subsidisation, and infrastructure sectors such as electricity distribution, and energy retailing could witness private investment in due course.