‘Hello Subra will you do a post for the Budget?’

Me: No.

Media house: Why?

Me: The Budget is a media event, NOT what the public want.

MH: Subra, everybody wants to know what will happen to the country in the next financial year.

Me: Complete nonsense. We are a victim of HABITS. The English rulers wanted to know how the ‘Colony’ was being run – and the biggest ‘revenue grosser’ other than the government was the railways. So we had a railway budget and a general budget. Today our oil, aviation, metals, mining, industries run by the government (a.k.a public sector) are actually much bigger than the railways! It took us 50 years to change the timing from 12 noon (business hours London) to 11.00 hrs Indian time!

The common man does not know the difference between Fiscal deficit and Revenue deficit. He could not care whether the fertilizer subsidy is Rs. 100,000 crore. He does not even bother to know whether we subsidize the fertilizers for the cotton farmer, tobacco farmer or the apple farmer.

The common man is only wanting to know:

have the tax limits changed, whether the 80C limit has been changed, ….and sadly this is about 15 minutes of the second half.

Not that I am blaming the common man, but really the budget is just a media event, not really a significant event.