Budget 2020-21.

The national budget 2020-21 presented today offers no surprises. Announced in the typical PTI style where, as usual, ambiguity prevails on where the real ownership lies - for preparing such a lacklustre and unimaginative document and with the mere relief being that at least the ordeal is over. Ironically, it has just begun. Given its content, one wonders who would like to take its credit, the Minister reading it, the economic advisor who mostly refuses to listen to the actual stakeholders, the IMF, or the ever-present bureaucracy? While one can understand and perhaps even sympathise with the constraints the government faces due to COVID-19, still the disappointment is that much like its pre-pandemic performance, its economic team once again failed to provide the economy with a clear direction, especially when needed most. Forget the dichotomies and bizarre assumptions on how revenue collection will be increased between 24-27 percent amidst an unprecedented slowdown or how a growth of 2.10 percent will be achieved when almost everyone else is reporting negative GDP growth forecasts or how exports of $22 billion be achieved when our two main markets (US and EU) are virtually dormant or from where the additional (almost) 5 trillion rupees will come to bridge the budget deficit likely to be in double digits, the most damaging aspect of this budget though, is that it fails to provide any hope. With all eyes on government to adopt a proactive approach to take people out of the current poverty and unemployment trap (no respectable person wants cash grants), what we instead see is a complete absence of any road map on key economic drivers: How to manage exports till global demand normalises; how to stimulate domestic economy to generate growth and employment; which PSEs to privatise and how to quickly turn around others; how the government can give itself a haircut to set a standard on expense cutting, how to protect our SMEs; and last but not least, announcing 3 years of policy measures on stabilising inputs and utilities cost to give a positive signal to investor in order to kick start presently stalled investment.

In short, it may be fair to comment that a revisit is inevitable by as early as September 2020! And it appears the government knows this, because why else would it set an unrealistic tax revenue target at 4.95 trillion rupees and almost retain the previous debt servicing allocation of rupees 3 trillion despite the interest rate this...