The Union Budget for 2013-14 would walk the tight balance between regaining fiscal discipline and making expenditure more effective given that economic growth may not be too buoyant to bring in additional tax revenue. While some marginal benefits may be given to individual taxpayers given the prevalence of high inflation, focus would tend to be more on incentivizing infrastructure bonds through tax breaks.
On the expenditure side, hopefully we would get to see the government spend on infrastructure now that we have passed the hurdle of linking diesel prices to the market which will help in controlling the subsidy bill. As this will be the last budget before the elections, there would be some affirmative steps in the areas of agriculture, warehousing, continuation of interest subvention and write-offs, SMEs etc. But, we may be assured that populism will not be at the expense of prudence.