Roughly half the time governments miss key budget projections, at times by a long way, as the NDA did in its first term and the UPA did in its second term
When the finance minister Arun Jaitley presents the budget on 1 February, he will present three sets of numbers. The first is the budget estimates, which are projections for the coming year (FY2018-19).
The second is the revised estimates for the ongoing year that still has two months to run (FY2017-18), and indicate how close or how far the government was in meeting the projections it made in February last year. The third is the actual numbers for FY2016-17, which shows what the government delivered for the period that ended 10 months ago.
The tables below show how governments in the last 18 years fared on what they budgeted for and what they delivered in three key areas. Green is good and red is bad. Roughly, half the time governments miss key projections, at times by a long way, as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did in its first term and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) did in its second term.
