Budget should focus on bridging inequality: Subbarao

New Delhi: The upcoming Budget should focus on creating jobs and bridging the widened inequality in the economy besides accelerating growth, former RBI Governor D Subbarao said on Thursday, while observing that given the continuing need to raise spending on education, health and infrastructure, there is not much leeway for tax cuts.

Subbarao also opined that experience shows export promotion behind protectionist walls is seldom competitive, so there is a case for reducing the tariffs. "Accelerating growth is the objective of every Budget as it should be of this one. But this Budget should pay special attention to bridging the widened inequality in the economy," he told PTI in an interview.

While noting that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused enormous distress to the low-income segments who operate in the informal economy, Subbarao said the upper income segments have not only been able to protect their incomes but have in fact been able to grow their savings and wealth.

Citing the latest World Inequality Report which had said that India is among the most unequal countries in the world, he said, "such wide inequality is not only morally wrong and politically corrosive, but it will also dent our long-term growth prospects." Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament on February 1. "We need job intensive growth. If there is a theme for this Budget, it should be jobs," he said.