India's pre-election budget is long on promises, but short on sums

Bombay

IN what is probably the last budget before general elections next year, India's finance minister Arun Jaitley made a bid to win the rural vote, as well as soften the tax burden for industry and not draw too much attention to his government's poor performance in managing the fiscal deficit.

In a highly unusual move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared on all the national TV channels after Mr Jaitley's address and made a political speech on how the budget would benefit the common man.

It was obviously a budget designed to gather support in an election year. Farmers were promised that their crops would be purchased by the government at 50 per cent more than their cost of production. The government would find the resources to insure 100 million rural families for h…