Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/MintThe Union budget for 2018-19, presented in Parliament last week, was a formidable challenge for the finance minister. But the share of capital expenditure in total expenditure is just 12%, while the share of revenue expenditure is 88%. In the budget estimates for 2018-19, as a proportion of total expenditure, capital outlays for infrastructure account for 24.4% (higher than 22.3% in the revised estimates for 2017-18). That is the reason why out-of-pocket expenses account for 70% of total expenditure under the present Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana. The political messaging in the budget is clever but cannot suffice.

Source: Mint February 08, 2018 18:45 UTC