The Venture Intelligence Blog

In a recent Business Standard column , former Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya has expressed unease - from the perspective of the economy - at the way the new UPA government has started off. Given the kind of expectation for reform the stock markets have built up from the new government, it might be well worth watching out for the signals that Acharya points to in the Union Budget. Economic reforms were not a serious campaign platform for the Congress or UPA...The crucial finance portfolio went to Pranab Mukherjee, undoubtedly the most experienced cabinet minister in the current firmament (he first held a cabinet portfolio thirty years ago), but not renowned for a stellar track record in economic reforms...Does this mean we will have another five years of near stasis on economic reforms? ...With exports falling and public investment sluggish, a failure to revive private investment would make it very difficult to attain the implicit growth requirements outlined above. My suggeste...

The new UPA government's first policy statement - the presidential address (PA) to Parliament - gives Business Standard columnist and former Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya a feeling that this government is set to unleash a host of programmes (read big budget "yojanas" like the NREGS). The last five years of UPA rule witnessed an ambivalent mixture of trends. On the one hand, the government stopped privatisations and disinvestments, halted most reforms, strengthened price controls on petroleum products, fertilisers, food grains and selected interest rates and undertook major expansions of social programmes (notably the NREGP) and caste-based quotas in education and public employment. On the other hand, a potent combination of past reforms, successful fiscal consolidation (till spring 2008) and the liquidity-fuelled global boom propelled the biggest surge in private investment that India has ever seen, spurring economic growth to 9 per cent. Now things seem set to ...