New Delhi, Feb. 16 -- The interim fiscal budget for 2019-20 is the last hurrah of the ruling BJP-led NDA regime ahead of the national elections expected by May. Although such election-year budgets are intended to provide funding for essential expenditures for the first four months of the financial year before a new government takes over, this one targeted benefits for powerful vote-banks like farmers, middle class and the informal sector of the economy. It also unveiled a re-election manifesto of sorts with an ambitious "Vision 2030", according to which India would be a USD 5 trillion economy in five years and a USD 10 trillion economy in the next eight years.
The optimism behind Vision 2030 is, of course, India being recognised as a "brig...