An Introduction and Overview

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An Introduction and Overview

Budget 2023-24

Vol. 58, Issue No. 12, 25 Mar, 2023

Updated on 27 March 2023

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The fiscal consolidation effort of the union government reinforces the fact that a sustained reduction in debt and deficit at the union level is critical for a fast improvement in the general government fiscal balance. As the economic growth has improved, a medium-term debt path for a targeted reduction of debt ratio would help sustain the gains achieved in 2022–23.

EPW would like to thank the guest-editor, Pinaki Chakraborty, for organising the special issue of the Budget 2023–24.

This special issue of Economic & Political Weekly on Union Budget 2023–24 analyses various aspects of India’s post-COVID-19 fiscal developments and their likely impact on fiscal prudence, growth, macroeconomic stability, development spending, and union–state transfers. This special issue also discusses the complexities and effectiveness of an independent fiscal council in India drawing international experiences and the existing arrangements for an ex ante fiscal evaluation at the union and state levels.

Apart from an introduction and overview, eight articles in this special issue cover growth and fiscal consolidation (D K Srivastava, pp 41–46; M Govinda Rao, pp 22–26; Sudipto Mundle and Ajaya Sahu, pp 34–40), fiscal and monetary interaction and countercyclical smoothing (Ashima Goyal, pp 27–33), complexities of having an independent fiscal council in a multilevel fiscal system (Y V Reddy and Pinaki Chakraborty, pp 15–17), electoral cycle and union budget (Ashok K Lahiri, pp 18–21), the impact of union budget on the financial sector (Partha Ray, pp 47–49), and agriculture (S Mahendra Dev, pp 50–53). The final articles in this collection are set to be published in the next issue covering union budget, private sector recovery, fiscal balance, and the external sector by Sajjid Z Chinoy and financial inclusion and budget particularly digitisation focusing on women by Pami Dua. This introduction is intended to set the context of these articles.