Missing budget table

If budget policy started changing around the mid-1980s, it is for a reason. The original oak wood table used by successive finance ministers, right from the time of the interim government before independence, went missing around then. Pranab Mukherjee is now searching for the table first used by Liaquat Ali Khan who was the finance minister in the interim government — Mukherjee used the table when he was finance minister and was surprised not to find it when he returned to the ministry after 24 years. He has issued orders asking that the table be found. He even asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram if they had used that table during their tenure as finance ministers. While Singh said he had not, Chidambaram said he’d just heard about the table but never ever saw it. Since India’s very first budget was finalised on that table, Mukherjee is keen to get it back. Whether it will mean a return to old socialist budget policies is to be seen.