Just a few weeks to go before the Budget and though the Reserve Bank Governor thinks it might not be a bad idea to tax foreign institutional investors his xenophobic musings are promptly squashed by the finance minister.
A reformist civil aviation policy is announced but with curious riders. Private airlines can now chart international skies but only if they have been in business for five years.
Foreign investment is upped in Indian aviation companies but foreign airlines are still barred from investing in an Indian airline.
Confused or contradictory? Reformist or protectionist? These are just a few of the things that make you wonder whose Budget it will be anyway -- P Chidambaram's or Manmohan Singh's? A lawyer may end up reading the speech but is it the top economist who's pulling the strings?
Certainly it seems hard to imagine that it was much the same team that ushered in the first flowering of economic reforms in the early 1990s. Manmohan Singh was finance minister and Chidambaram was his team-mate in the commerce ministry.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, now deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, was finance secretary and C Rangarajan, who now heads the PM's economic task force, was RBI Governor. Why are the original scriptwriters toning down the text today?
There are many who believe further reforms will wither on the branch as the United Progressive Alliance government dawdles over consensus among its political partners. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he spoke of pursuing "reforms with a human face".
Yes, we can see some of the laudatory proposals to help the poor of India. Ambitious social sector schemes such as food for work programmes, guaranteeing 100 days of employment a year to one person in each rural family, and a new thrust in primary education, that abysmally neglected and ill-starred project since Independence.
Elementary back-of-the-envelope calculations would suggest that the bill to implement such projects could go up to Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion). Any ideas where this money is to come from?
More staggering sums are required for this government's ambitious plans to upgrade essential infrastructure, in keeping with an India "that will shine for all"-- gleaming highways or swank, super-efficient airports and ports.
"India Shining" UPA-style is being recycled as a grand Nehruvian Dream Mark II. But the percipient observer may wonder what happened to the glorious Golden Quadrilateral floated by the previous government or the other India Shining schemes.
Revenue deficit is now pegged at a massive Rs 17,000 crore (Rs 170 billion) for 2004-2005. Tax collections haven't kept up and corporate tax in particular has been poor.
Duty cuts on steel and petroleum products have helped cut inflation but the word "divestment" seems to have disappeared from current political jargon. In tune with its pro-poor, Left-appeasing stance, the government is bent on reviving sick PSUs rather than selling them off.
The Congress and the Left parties are, after all, old friends, and in the old Nehruvian scheme of things, handouts count as acts of fiscal responsibility. Market forces, often dictated by foreign investment, are to be perceived barbarians at the gate.
Why for instance does Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel decide that only private Indian carriers with five years' experience can fly internationally?
Surely in an open economy that is the consumer's prerogative and not the minister's? You and I should be able to decide which airline suits us best on which route.
Similarly, why does this fear of foreigners persist with every Indian government? What is this phoney notion -- of takeovers parading as nationalism -- that bars a foreign airline from investing in an Indian aviation company?
The government remains protectionist -- giving rise to suspicions that some players may be more equal than others and it cannot get its sticky fingers out of a hundred things that it should be involved in, from hotels, airports and dozens of loss-making manufacturing units.
With progressive reformers ranged against the Nehruvian planners, no one should expect any revolutionary advances in next month's Budget. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
