This may be the last budget which can be presented by the current government of India. It is therefore also a pre-general Election year Budget. It follows a series of election defeats of the ruling Congress Party, earlier in December 1994 in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh; and this month (March 1995) in Maharashtra and Gujarat. It presents the budgets for 1995-96 at a time when almost all the macro-economic indicators are good. At the same time, investing communities in India and overseas want reassurance that the budget would give fresh signals about the determination of the government to proceed with reforms. After the series of electoral defeats it has been generally expected that the budget would be a “populist” one, meaning that it would give away vast sums of money in loosely framed programmes for the poor without any consideration for sound macro economic management.