Tamil Nadus `mini-budget: Will it revive fiscal health?
S. Venkitaramanan The cash-strapped Tamil Nadu Government has announced a hefty but essential mini-Budget. The recent travails of commuters, brought on by the unreasonable demands of striking transport workers, has inadvertently helped create an environment favourable for the tough measures being introduced to rescue the State finances. The timing has proved to be almost perfect from the point of view of acceptance by the populace. The people will find it difficult to resist the State Government’s logic that the priority is for resources to be raised to meet the growing deficit. Politic al parties may oppose the move, but the common man will understand that an unviable State Government will find it difficult to serve the very people it chooses to pamper with subsidies and concessions at the cost of fiscal health. Fiscal correction, in the sense that the State should earn enough through taxes and user charges to meet its expenses, has been recommended by all economic reformers _ from Dr
