Budget, Economy, Policy & Politics: The Outlook for India in 2017

Navneet Munot, Mukesh Butani and Dr Rahul Khullar came together for a panel discussion on the 2017 Union Budget.

The panel discussion ended with an audience interaction that had a very interesting take on the budget. (Photo: The Quint)

There’s an old Chinese saying, “May you live in interesting times”. It certainly cannot get more interesting than the current times. With Brexit, Trump winning the US elections, demonetisation, everything that’s happening that no one predicted.

Navneet Munot, CIO SBI Mutual Fund, Mukesh Butani, Chairman and Managing Partner, BMR Legal and Dr Rahul Khullar, Former Chairman TRAI and Former Secretary, Ministry of Commerce came together for a panel discussion on the 2017 Union Budget at an event recently. The current economic scenario was discussed with the three panelists all coming from different schools of thought about the Budget.

With an investor’s view point, Navneet Munot showed optimism towards the budget. According to him, the four growth drivers that could be very interesting over the next few years include rural India, affordable housing, access to credit and rising exports, that could help India build a sound monetary policy and propel India’s growth story in the coming years.

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Munot also underlined the four indicators for a sustainable bull market – stable macro and political environment, driving corporate profitability, starting valuations and liquidity. He said India is poised, like the US in the past, for a period of NICE (non-inflationary continued expansion) that will set India in a different growth trajectory. What India is going to achieve is going to be nothing short of miraculous in the coming 15/20 years. The world is moving to anti-globalisation, more nationalist, closing economies. India is opening up FD, liberalising more, inviting foreign competition. We are in a completely different trajectory.

“No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” said Victor Hugo. I genuinely believe our time has come.

Navneet Munot, CIO SBI Mutual Fund

With Dr Khullar’s civil services background, he feared that the budget was only an image makeover. “The government is defending and promoting what demonetisation stood for, changing the narrative to cashless economy.” He said the two reforms that the government wanted to highlight were the FIIP and political funding to parties.

Also Read: Budget 2017: Modi & Jaitley’s Timely Prescription for the Economy

It is a no-risk, no-adventure budget.

Dr Rahul Khullar, Former Chairman TRAI & Former Secretary, Ministry of Commerce

Mr Butani on the other hand, came in neutral. He had mixed reactions on the budget. The two good points about the budget according to him were that the non-planned and planned expenditure had been done away with and the government had shown the projected current account deficit at around 2%. He was of the opinion that if the government is able to achieve 1.2% with capital expenditure, India would be in a great spot.

With Navneet at the right, and Dr Khullar on the left, I will take a more centre-left position. 

Mukesh Butani, Chairman and Managing Partner, BMR Legal

The panel discussion ended with an audience interaction that had a very interesting take on the budget and its scope around societal issues including primary health, sanitation, education in India and the issue of corruption at the centre and state levels.

The event was organised by The Outstanding Speakers’ Bureau and Client Associates with The Quint as the exclusive digital partner. The session was chaired by by Pranjal Sharma, an economic analyst, advisor and writer who focuses on technology, globalization and media. He guides projects on economic forecasting, business intelligence and public diplomacy with Indian and global organisations. Pranjal creates and develops research projects that interpret policy impact on industry and society.

The Outlook for 2017: I think there’s still a little uncertainty, the broad direction seems to be good, but the working of that direction still needs some effort.

Pranjal Sharma