Crowding-in of carnival mirrors.

"The Budget was welcomed on Tuesday by leaders of India Inc, who appreciated the finance minister's focus to push for strong economic growth through substantial increase in government spending on capital expenditure," HT. "The government's new connectivity push under the GatiShakti National Masterplan will set out to build 25,000 km more of national highways, 100 new cargo terminals, four logistics parks, eight ropeway projects, and help start 400 Vande Bharat trains over the coming years, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said." The government is to build roads with taxpayer money and then charge taxpayers for using the roads in the form of vary high toll tax. Thus, total toll tax for traveling by car from Delhi to Lucknow is Rs 1035 for a distance of 554 km, which works out to just less than Rs 2 per km, Tollbetween. Charges for trucks are higher, Relianceroads, which get added to cost of goods we buy at shops. "To walk the talk, the finance minister stepped up the outlay for capital expenditure in the central government budget sharply by 35.4% -- from Rs 5.54 lakh crore (Rs 5.54 trillion) in 2021-22 to Rs 7.50 lakh crore in 2022-23," wrote former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg. In 2021-22, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) borrowed Rs 650 billion and received Rs 573.50 billion from the government. However, "The NHAI would not borrow anything for finding its capex program in 2022-23! The government has substituted the NHAI's borrowings for capital expenditure." The Budget projects the fiscal deficit for 2022-23 at 6.4% of GDP or Rs 16.61196 trillion, higher than the revised estimate of Rs 15.91089 trillion in the last financial year, NDTV. "What you see is not what you get in the Union budget 2022-23 either. Chimera, subterfuge and carnival mirrors abound in the 2020-21 Economic Survey, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's budget speech, and, finally, data in the supporting documents," wrote Rajrishi Singhal. The Budget estimates nominal GDP to grow by 11% in 2022-23 while the Economic Survey expects real GDP to grow by 8-8.5%. Real GDP is arrived at by subtracting inflation from nominal GDP according to a GDP deflator, which is calculated on prices in a base year, lumen. Hence, for the real GDP to grow at 8% when nominal GDP growth is only 11% means that the Budget is predicting inflation at 3-3.5%. The RBI estimates retail inflation will be 5.3% in the current financial year and 5% in the first half of the next, NDTV. "The emphasis (in the Budget) is on attempts to crowd-in private capital expenditure along with a dose of import substitution. However, hardening G-Sec yields can also cause a crowding-out effect," wrote Dhanajay Sinha. "In view of the rising US Treasury yield, lower external capital flows, widening current account deficits, and rising credit-deposit ratio of banks, we now believe that India 10-year benchmark (bond yields) can rise beyond our earlier projection of 7.5% to 7.75% in the next 12 months (currently at 6.82%, post-pandemic low at 5.8%)." Good old 'tax and spend'. Will only increase prices.