Author Shobhaa De's take on the best and worst things in Budget 2019

What is the best thing about the Budget? 

I am quite enthusiastic about the idea of prioritising some projects that will be in the form of national grids, and also the focus on creating many more toilets, which sounds unromantic but definitely should be done on a war footing. 

And the worst?

There was nothing too thrilling about this Budget, though nothing terrible either. Selfishly speaking, I don’t see the rationale behind paying more tax for imported books. 

Will it help the economy and create jobs?

The unemployed are going to continue to remain unemployed from the looks of it. It hasn’t been aggressively addressed at all and the government’s answer will be that they cannot create jobs out of thin air. 

If you could make one change in the Budget, it would be…

The education Budget seems vague. Two IITs and IISc have made it to the top-200 world universities but those are inaccessible for more than 95 per cent of India. I would enact more concrete changes for basic, rural and grassroots education.