Imphal, February 28: We have had the full Budget of the Union Government today.

The Finance Minister has announced the utilitarian approach of the Government by promising to "bring the greatest good to the greatest number".

Focus: Before we discuss the merit of the Budget it would be in place to dwell on the highlights of the Budget.

The Budget puts emphasis on education and infrastructure.

Within this, it promises to give priority to rural development and advancement of SC, ST and minorities.

For generation of employment potential, the Budget gives emphasis on one modern sector, Information Technology, and two traditional sectors, textiles and construction.

The Budget promises to endeavour for making electricity and telephone available to all the uncovered villages so far.

The railway project for connecting Imphal has been declared a project of National importance.

The Budget puts special emphasis on knowledge.

Besides a National Knowledge Commission, there will now be a Rural Knowledge Centre in every village.

Steps have also been initiated to create universities of world standard in the country with the identification of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore as an institute of excellence.

The Budget Message: While the above is a brief picture of the areas of focus of the latest Budget, the charm of the orientation is latent in a very subtle way.

Anybody having some knowledge of the logic of the contemporary economic reform measures around the globe would not fail to appreciate this.

The basic message of the current economic reform measures is the need for clear demarcation of Govt�s role in the development process of a country.

Whereas the real economic activities should be left in the private sector, the Govt should rather confine itself to only a limited zone and concentrate on facilitating the undertaking of new economic initiatives by the private sector.

An examination of the orientation of the new Budget reflects a clear understanding of this logic.

This is exactly where the charm of the new Budget lies.

We know that most of the potential financial sector reform measures have been announced by the Central Govt before the Budget.

This included, above all, the freeing of hurdles on inter-competition among the Nationalised banks.

This move has the implication of almost de-nationalising the commercial banks in so far as operational activities are concerned.

While in the earlier Budgets, particularly the Budgets of a decade earlier or so, the emphasis was on where and in what activities the Govt was putting its money.

This method has been given a goodbye for good in this latest Budget.

The latest Budget reflects an intensive exercise of the mind to identify the weak areas for development where the private sector may not immediately come in.

These happen to be education and infrastructure - areas which are foundations on which other activities are dependent for growth.

The Budget used to emphasise only on primary education earlier, but now it has fully become aware of the fact that knowledge is an important factor of production.

The ultimate comparative advantage of the country can be based only on the knowledge base of the country.

It is towards this end that the various general and specific educational schemes are oriented.

One weakness of the reform measures is that it does not have a provision for taking the less developed regions along.

This issue is sought to be addressed by creating a Backward Region Grant Fund.

Overall, while the economic initiatives are being increasingly left in the private hands, the budget promises to strive for reducing the lack of attractiveness of the backward regions.

Still another weakness of the reform measures is the lack of an inherent mechanism for caring the poor during the interim period and schemes for enhancing their capabilities.

The Budget displays appreciation of this weakness and promises to address this through various financing schemes.

But the beauty of these financing schemes is the novelty with which the Government�s role is not sought to be raised while enhancing the role of the stockholders.

The various micro-finance schemes are for this purpose.

The bottom-line: While I would award full credit to Mr P Chidambaram for presenting to the Nation of a Budget fully in line with the logic of economic reforms, the ultimate question is what is in store for Manipur.

Here I would like to emphasise that the Budget has shown subtle but clear recognition of the cost of reforms for States like Manipur.

It is now for the State Government to prove its mettle in taking advantage of this new atmosphere.

This is one area where history will judge Ibobi.

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