Venue: Room No.206, Block I                                                                       Time: 11.00-12.00 Date: 7-02-18

I BA EPS students organised a panel discussion on Union Budget 2018 in I EPS class room (Room No.207) on 7th February, 2018 from 11.00-12.00. The discussion was moderated by Srruthi Lekha and the four panelists were Mehvish Khan, Avinash, Ganesh Raj and Raghav Nair from I EPS.
Each Panelist came up with different viewpoints, few noted out the pros and few the cons maintain a balance in the panel discussion. Mehvish khan spoke about the health sector in detail as to what are the implementations the government has proposed and planned to execute in the future. She also covered the details of the proposed budget on the agricultural and educational sector briefly which included topics such as cost of living, agricultural and rural economy, flagship programmes for the poor, plans for the senior citizens and fiscal management. Followed by the first panelist, the second panelist briefed about  the banking system and political point of view of the budget 2018 along with specifications on recapitalization of banks to give out credits to MSMEs. The third speaker, Ganesh Raj spoke about how this year’s budget is just a cloud of dreams and has no value in the presence as it is merely going to vanish in the coming days and let us experience the same old issues. His views were totally in contradiction to that of the first speaker Ms.Mehvish khan who spoke of how these plans and proposals can bring India its good days. He questioned as to how the government is going to implement the agricultural plan and how  is it going to be helpful to the public if the prices of the drugs remain high though we have 24 new  medical colleges introduced in different parts of the world? His overall view was that it is going to be the richer minority benefited again as usual than the poor majority population because the plans proposed which are said to be for the lower class economy of the country stands without a pathway to reach the destination. The final speaker of the session who ended with a final brief of the budget as content was Raghav Nair. He also gave a macro picture of budget and the reference of the union budget with the capital markets and the income tax. He also covered a range of topics from critising the efficiency of the budget to the fiscal consolidation.
After the panel discussion, the floor was open for discussion. One of the questions posed from the audience was by Jan Wilson saying that, Issue of Kisan card to farmers which gives loans to them for  their needs and cancellation of prevailed subsidies which gave them at a lower price. Is this a motive by the central govt. to increase the debt of fishermen thereby forcing them to quit their traditional occupation and handover the space to corporate? Was this a benefit or a burden?? We had questions and debate by  the audience on the topic of military expenditure, how it has vanished and how government this time has taken a trade-off of butter over guns this time in the budget.
The panel discussion ended with the same point as to where it had started. The union budget 2018 is more of a long term goal than a short term goal which has been given much of a political importance to gain supports in the election than the real value of development and prosperity for the country’s economy. This panel discussion was indeed a fruitful discussion for us. I speak on behalf of the 2BA in EPS, the students of economics and we thank our class teacher Mrs. Greeshma Manoj, the department and Christ University for such a wonderful opportunity.