In an interview to discuss and analyse Sunday’s budget, one of India’s foremost economists, who is also a former Chief Statistician and former country head of the International Growth Centre, says the prime minister’s description of the budget as historic is not correct. Pronab Sen says this was not a historic budget although he’s not surprised the prime minister has used that term. Instead, Sen described this as “a business-as-usual” budget which he called “unremarkable”.

Asked how well the budget has tackled the problems the economy faces, Sen made clear that it has not done so effectively. To be specific, his answer was “not at all” when asked how effectively the budget has tackled the stagnation in private sector investment. He said he couldn’t see “the bada boost” to job creation, which the prime minister identified in his post-budget statement. And Sen thought it was “irresponsible” for the finance minister to have almost forgotten about agriculture in her budget.

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