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Budget Chat
Budget
Citibank India
Dr Shankar Acharya
The priority setter
The finance minister's Budget speech usually is divided
into two parts. The second deals with the new fiscal measures
for the coming financial year. The first deals with the pattern
of resource deployment and is an important indicator of the sectoral
priorities that the government has set for itself.
In fashioning the policy stance implicit in government expenditures,
the main role is assayed by the chief economic advisor to the
government. That post is now occupied by Dr Shankar Acharya --
an Oxford and Harvard-educated economist.
Prior to joining the government in 1985 Dr Acharya had an 11-year
stint with the World Bank and then spent three years at the National
Institute of Public Finance and Policy Research -- an institute
founded by Dr Raja Chellaiah who has been instrumental in pushing
through the tax reforms introduced during Dr Manmohan Singh's
tenure as the finance minister.
Extremely publicity-shy and with a cultivated image of being one
of the backroom boys, Dr Acharya has been determining sectoral priorities
for the past three years. The major problem he faces lies in his
inability to fine-tune policies to ensure that no political feathers
are ruffled, an issue that posed no problem when a single party
held power in the federal government. With a coalition government,
Acharya could find his lack of flexibility a problem -- not just
for himself but for his finance minister too.
The Budget Makers
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