Budget & the Stock Market: This number gives the market multi-year visibility into government spending – hence fate of many sectors

In the Union Budget, this is the investment architecture that connects the central government’s spending to state spending. It forces you to track not just how much the government spends, but how much of that spend is structurally asset-creating rather than purely recurring operations. For the stock market, the fiscal deficit is the headline; infrastructure allocation is the long-tail. It is the part of the budget that can create multi-year visibility into where government spend is going. Provided, of course, the financing is credible and execution converts allocation into assets on the ground.