New Delhi, Feb. 2 -- This year's budget comes at a critical juncture when the bounce-back from the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have exhausted itself and the economy risks sliding into the low rates of growth witnessed right before the pandemic. Furthermore, as I've highlighted before and as mentioned in the Economic Survey, the pace of creation of regular wage jobs has been slower than desired, share of self-employment has increased, and labour earnings have stagnated. The related divergence between labour earnings and profits of large firms has also found a mention in the Economic Survey.

The reason is continued weakness in private investment, due to low rates of capacity utilization, signalling poor demand. Completing the vicious circle...