Why not use Budget 2019 to reveal what it takes to fund a welfare state?

Budget 2019

The one thing finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman must do in her budget statement is to be transparent and upfront about the actual borrowings by the government.
In 2018-19, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) borrowed at least Rs 1,00,000 crore to meet the cost of Centre’s food procurement program. Similarly, the National Highway Authority of India has borrowed on behalf of the Centre to build roads. Public sector oil companies and electricity utilities have borrowed on the Centre’s account to deliver subsidies to the poor, whether in the Ujwala gas cylinder scheme or building last mile electricity infrastructure.
Interestingly, the BJP-led NDA government has formalised this arrangement by making public sector undertakings (PSUs) and other public utilities borrow heavily on behalf of the government so that the debt remains on the PSU’s balance sheet and out of the Centre’s budgeting. The Centre has even agreed to service such debt by paying the interest on such borrowings by the PSUs.
In 2014, after Narendra Modi became prime minister, finance minister Arun Jaitley had loudly protested in Parliament that the UPA had passed on a lot of unpaid subsidies to the NDA by way of debt taken by the same entities like the Food Corporation of India and oil PSUs who had been handed government bonds in lieu of subsidy payments. Ironically, what the UPA did to the NDA is now being done by the NDA to itself. Nirmala Sithraman can rightly ask Jaitley the questions that Jaitley had asked P Chidambaram.

 Therefore, Budget 2019 offers the chance to start a clean slate and be upfront about total public borrowings taken to fund the Centre’s programmes.