Budget 2022 should lend a helping hand
-Published in The Hindustan Times
Give workers a two-year PF contribution holiday; extend the ₹5 lakh health insurance to the ‘missing middle’; and make the buying of government securities under RBI’s direct scheme tax free
The political view is that Budget 2022 will be an election budget as five states, including Uttar Pradesh, go to polls in the next two months. The economic view is that it is difficult to use the Union Budget to benefit the citizens of just five states, and there isn’t enough money to give the pre-2009 election farm loan waiver-equivalent to everybody. The direction of the government spends and reliefs are a manifestation of the core idea that drives that year’s budget. By all indications, Budget 2022 is going to be a helping hand budget — a budget that has proposals to stop the slide back into poverty of the newly non-poor population cohort and to help lower- income households in the organised sector find the money to spend.