This budget reminds me of a verse from Bhagvadgita : “annad bhavanti bhutani” all living bodies subsist on food grains. To me budget proposals, prima facie, seems to be designed for food security, to facilitate infrastructure growth and arrest inflation. It is an aam aadmi budget with an objective to feed hunger for infrastructure growth. The Public Private Partnership (PPP) for infrastructure upgradation as well as development and food security seems to be the main themes of the present government. This was at the core of Railway budget too.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee deserves to be complimented for doing a savvy job in walking the tightrope between keeping his government’s promise to the “aam aadmi” and rural India, while not neglecting other sections of society. In a way, he had something to offer to everyone - from rural India, farmers, the unorganised sector, entire spectrum of “aam aadmi”.

The emphasis on food and energy security with participation from private sector is an important reform for developing infrastructure in those areas. Modernisation, up-gradation and deployment of state of art technologies coupled with flexibility of raising fund thru ECB and setting up of food parks for minimising wastages in food grain and orchard produce and processing the same will go long way in enhancing availability of food by minimising waste.

Inviting participation of private sector in coal mining will lead to improved productivity and in turn will help the thermal power generation units in stable long term fuel linkages. The emphasis on energy efficiency in power generation by deploying super critical technology is significant step. Incentives for tapping non-conventional energy sources will lead to harnessing them with vigor. The thrust on SEZ schemes will lead to accelerated investments in the SEZ and in-turn will help generating employment and improving infrastructure within SEZs.

The fiscal prudence of gradually curtailing the fiscal deficit will go a long way in stimulating investment and ensuring sustainability of high growth rates in future. This coupled with providing licenses for new banks will lead to healthy competition in financial sector and in turn will benefit the infrastructure financing. The revisiting of personal income tax rates with concession of Rs. 20,000 for investment in infrastructure bonds too will lead to improved availability of funds to infrastructure sector. Increase in weighted deduction on expenditure on research will lead to increased investment in research including energy efficient power generation technologies.

All these will lead to improved infrastructure, which in turn will benefit each and every individual at the end of the day, as it will help in providing competitive edge to all sectors of economy. On the whole, the budget 2010 has turned out to be an excellent balancing act under challenging circumstances.