Budget 2021: Why Increased Govt Expenditure Is ‘Doomed’ to Failure

But I am equally convinced that our State has displayed an extremely poor capacity to execute economic plans. The Government of India has not been able to:

• Sell an airline for nearly half a decade now
• Build second airports at Mumbai and NCR (national capital region) for over a decade
• Get its first bullet train on track
• Achieve critical size for the Delhi-Mumbai freight corridor over decades
• Make Ahmedabad’s GIFT look like London’s Canary Wharf, except in brochures
• Even sell scrips, forget about building physical assets – in 10 out of the last 12 years, it’s fallen way short of its disinvestment target, with the current year recording the most abysmal miss, despite the private sector picking up a record Rs 1.7 trillion from a roaring stock market

So, when a fiscal stimulus — which I unreservedly support — is equated “whole-ly and sole-ly” with “stepped up government expenditure”, I turn truant. In my…