India, Feb. 2 -- In college exams, we used to have "continuation sheets". If you had too much to say, you asked for another sheaf of papers. Budget 2026 can be called a continuation budget. A work-in-progress budget. A plumbing budget. A more oiling-the-wheels effort rather than an express reform train.

The biggest worry this financial year was the pressure on the fiscal deficit. The Rs.1 trillion of income-tax relief given in Budget 2025-26 plus the Rs.48,000-crore GST giveaway was poised to derail the budget estimates. But what made the story worse was a gross domestic product (GDP) deflator of just 0.5%. This measures the impact of inflation on real GDP and the trend line has been around 3.5%. While real GDP is of interest to macroeco...