The price of populism
Budget 2000-2001 has set itself the challenging task of inducting high sustainable growth with stability in the Indian economy. The budget had been presented at a time when all seemed well for the Indian economy -- booming stock markets, prospects of good monsoons, and political stability.

The black side of white
In 1996-97, P Chidambaram,the then finance minister, placed before Parliament a White Paper on subsidies. Although there were sporadic discussions on the subsidy burden in political circles before the paper came out, the contents hit all those who read it with resounding force. For the first time, the actual magnitude of mismanagement of the subsidy route was clearly brought out.

Subsidies -- necessity or evil?
Evidence shows that in many countries the expenditure on subsidies remains at a very high percentage of GDP. In India too, the incidence of the subsidy to GDP ratio is very high and the government is trying its best to scale down this figure.Subsidisation on such a large scale implies substantial opportunity costs.

Subsidies -- wide off the mark?
When does a social necessity become a social evil? With each budget likely to see social sector spending on the rise, this is going to a dilemma staring our governments more starkly in the face. And that's mainly because the funds that are granted for a particular social purpose find their way into unproductive loopholes, as has happened in the case of subsidies in India.

Casting off the rollback yoke
Let not one make a virtue out of necessity. If the government has finally opened its eyes to the spectre of subsidies, its not plain commonsense that is making it do it. It’s because of the realisation that if the ballooning subsidy bill is not curbed, the entire macro economic functioning will go haywire.

Short term politics, long term hazards
Budget 1999-2000 has focussed on reducing the fiscal deficit to around 2 per cent of GDP and alongwith it to attaining a high GDP growth of 8 per cent together with stability. The focus of the entire exercise is to bring about a qualitative improvement in the fiscal deficit.

"Subsidy targeting is difficult to implement"
The government is committed to bringing in more transparency in the subsidy regime. But the million dollar question is ‘when?’ Ajit Karnik Professor, Department of Economics, University of Bombay expressed his opinions to Jayashree Jakhade of Financial Express, Think Tank.