New Delhi, Feb. 2 -- Nirmala Sitharaman had an unenviable task of boosting economic growth without compromising the fiscal consolidation efforts of the government when she presented her record eighth consecutive budget on Saturday. The finance minister has tried to balance the two conflicting objectives. This is how she managed to pull it off:

Faced with a sharp fall in urban consumption which dragged economic growth down in the second quarter of this fiscal to just 5.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP) compared to 8.2% in the same period last year, the finance minister had to act, and she decided to take the bull by its horns.

She cut personal income tax sharply to leave as much as Rs.1 trillion in the hands of the people in the hop...