What explains the Budget's fiscal stance?

Although the budgetary exercise has made a virtue out of necessity, the change in fiscal stance could end up having a happy outcome

The deficit numbers in theBudget for 2021-22 are way above what analysts had expected. Hardly anybody had expected the fiscal deficit to end up at 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020-21 and 6.8 per cent in 2021-22.

Through the pandemic, few would have thought that the government would discard the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act for the foreseeable future. The decision to limit the discretionary fiscal stimulus to around 2 per cent of GDP had indicated otherwise — namely, that the government would return quickly to the path of fiscal consolidation once the pandemic had