Ravishankar Kalyanasundaram
“Unless outcomes precede outlays, every budget will read like a fresh manifesto. India needs not just a statement of accounts — but a statement of accountability.”
If this simple idea becomes practice, it could transform the way governments connect with citizens — turning budgets from grand declarations into grounded conversations.
India today has no shortage of bold schemes, visionary missions, or impressive budgetary commitments. From Smart Cities to Sagarmala, Mega Food Parks to Defence Corridors, the country has rolled out more transformative programmes in a decade than many others attempt in a generation.
But behind these ambitions lies a quiet public question:
And if they didn’t — who told us, and what did we do next?
The Union Budget, as it stands today, is a finely crafted presentation. The Economic Survey is detailed and data-rich. Ministries roll out targets and timelines. Parliament debates, and television scrolls buzz with headlines.
Yet for the average citizen — the student, the street vendor, the small farmer, the senior pensioner — it often feels like a distant exercise. There is no chapter in this national ritual that answers plainly:
We know how much was allocated. But we don’t always know what changed.
Consider the Mega Food Park Scheme. It promised linkages for 25,000 farmers per park, thousands of jobs, and reduced wastage. Yet over a decade later, only about half the sanctioned parks are fully operational — with uneven impact, limited outreach, and negligible transformation in farmgate incomes. The parks exist, but their presence is rarely felt by the people they were meant to empower.
Or take the Smart Cities Mission. The name was aspirational. Yet many cities ended up with fragmented upgrades — a bus shelter here, a digital dashboard there — while holistic urban transformation remains incomplete. For many, the “smartness” is still waiting to be experienced.
These examples are not just failures — they reflect a deeper cultural gap in governance: the mistaken belief that a scheme’s life cycle ends with its announcement.
Yes, India does have Economic Surveys and Outcome Budgets. But they are fragmented, overly technical, and disconnected from citizen experience. Dashboards exist, but in silos. Evaluations, where conducted, are often post-mortem — rarely feeding into budget corrections. And parliamentary debates seldom lead to formal performance-linked restructuring.
This creates a system where budgets are remembered by their headlines, not their impact. Public optimism is replaced by quiet resignation — and future schemes are received with scepticism, even if they are well-intended.
This is why India needs a Budget Prequel: a National Outcome Review presented before the Union Budget.
This is not merely a reform in accounting — it is a democratic commitment. A public declaration of:
This “Chapter Zero” would reconnect budgets with memory — with delivery — and most importantly, with the people.
To embed this outcome-led discipline, the government must activate a network of institutions:
| Institution | Contribution |
| NITI Aayog | Align schemes with national goals and SDGs |
| RBI | Assess macroeconomic and credit implications |
| FCI | Track impact of food subsidy and logistics |
| Line Ministries | Publish outcome scorecards annually |
| CAG / External Auditors | Independently validate performance claims |
The Ministry of Finance can lead this coordination — but cannot be expected to carry it alone.
This is not an anti-government proposal. It is pro-governance. It shifts attention from announcements to results, from optics to operations, from budgeting for applause to budgeting for trust.
Governments rightly seek the confidence of rating agencies and investors. But they must also win — and keep — the confidence of citizens.
A budget will resonate not because it has catchy headlines, but because people can see the road that was built, the hospital that was upgraded, the job that was generated. The budget must move from media moment to memory marker.
India does not need another manifesto disguised as a budget.
It needs a memory — backed by outcomes, measured with rigour, and communicated with humility.
And that memory must begin with a visible, verified, and citizen-facing outcome review before the next rupee is allocated.
Only then will the budget become not just a financial plan — but a public covenant.
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