By M Muneer
The Union Budget has been presented. The key question now is whether it will accelerate growth, or merely accelerate panel discussions, PPT slides, and optimistic LinkedIn posts. To its credit, the Budget is not short on ambition. It promises infrastructure, manufacturing revival, fiscal discipline, digital transformation, and just enough optimism to keep economists employed for another year.
Infrastructure & capex
This Budget allocates Rs 12.2 lakh crore to capital expenditure, once again declaring that roads, railways, ports, and pipelines will carry us into a glorious future — preferably without potholes, land disputes, or mysteriously vanishing contractors.
And indeed, infrastructure matters. You cannot build a $10 trillion economy on village roads and good intentions alone. But infrastructure is not a magic wand.
What must change: Pair infrastructure with private investment, faster approvals, and ruthless accountability.
Make in India, actually this time
The aim to touch 25% of GDP continues. The focus on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, textiles, rare earths, and sports goods suggests a sincere attempt to plug India into global value chains. Production linked incentives (PLIs) are back, but remember, manufacturing doesn’t thrive on just incentives.
It requires speed, reliability, low logistics costs, flexible labour laws, smooth land acquisition, and regulatory clarity.
What must change: Structural reforms must accompany fiscal carrots. Fix logistics, reduce red tape, modernise labour laws, and streamline land markets.
Fiscal discipline: The Budget’s inner monk
The commitment to a fiscal deficit of around 4.3% of GDP signals restraint, responsibility, and a willingness to say “no”. Excessive discipline can lead to an economy that is technically healthy but emotionally exhausted. In downturns, governments must sometimes spend more, not less.
What must change: Fiscal consolidation must not come at the expense of health, education, and social protection.
Tech & AI for the future
This Budget wants data centres, cloud infrastructure, digital public platforms, and AI skilling. But digital ecosystems don’t produce jobs overnight.
What must change: Digital investment must be paired with workforce retraining, MSME digital integration, and sectoral adoption — not just urban tech parks and inspirational policy documents.
The issues that refuse to be budgeted away
Private investment is still playing hard to get. Corporate India has cash, but not courage. Capacity utilisation is weak. Global uncertainty is high. Real interest rates are not exactly flirting. Public capex alone cannot drive sustained growth.
What must change: Introduce risk-sharing mechanisms, reform land and urban regulations, and create long-term infrastructure funds with private participation.
When households spend, factories hum, services grow, and tax collections smile. Unfortunately, middle-class consumption has slowed.
What must change: Introduce targeted tax relief, support middle-class spending, and expand direct transfers for vulnerable groups.
Global trade is turning protectionist. And our exports are under pressure. Manufacturing incentives are helpful, but we risk building factories that produce goods nobody can sell except perhaps to government procurement departments.
What must change: Develop a proactive export strategy.
Sign trade agreements. Support MSMEs in global value chains. Reform export credit and logistics subsidies.
Human capital is the most underfunded asset class. This Budget contains investments in healthcare, education, and skilling but not at a scale that matches the ambitions.
What must change: Substantially increase spending on healthcare infrastructure, public education quality, and vocational training aligned with industry.
This Budget lays a credible foundation for growth. But without bold execution, demand stimulation, private investment unlocking, human capital scaling, and export integration, this Budget risks becoming yet another entry in India’s long tradition of ‘almost there economics’.
In public policy, ambition is easy. Implementation is hard. Adjustment is harder. Accountability is rare. India lacks speed, coordination, and follow-through. If this Budget can fix those, then growth will follow. Otherwise, we will once again conclude, that the Budget was “well-intentioned,” “forward-looking,” and “a step in the right direction” which, in economic policy, is code for: Nice speech. Let’s see if anything happens.
The writer is a Fortune-500 advisor, start-up investor and co-founder of the non-profit Medici Institute for Innovation.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.