A real Budget, please: This one has to confront severe resource restraints

Among the first things that a finance minister has to do when framing the Budget is determine the likely growth rate for the economy in the year to come. The revenue, deficit, and other numbers depend on getting this foundational number right. In the current year, for instance, some of the serious errors in estimating revenue could have been avoided if nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth (i.e. real growth plus inflation) had been correctly estimated. What of next year?
 
Correct forecasting depends on an accurate reading of past trends. The decade till 2020 will have seen the economy

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