A Budget That Saved India From Bankruptcy
Opening up Indian economy to the world, Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister, presented historic Budget on July 24, 1991, and read out over a duration of 1 hour 35 minutes
New Delhi: ManmohanSingh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, had to literally face a trial-by-fire to ensure widespread acceptance of his path-breaking 1991 Union budget that saw the nation rise from its darkest financial crises. Singh, the newly-appointed finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao-led government, did it with great elan -- from facing journalists at a post-budget press conference to irate Congress leaders unable to digest the wide-ranging reforms at the Parliamentary party meeting.
Singh’s historic reforms not only rescued India from near bankruptcy, but also redefined its trajectory as a rising global power. Singh made an unscheduled appearance at a press conference on July 25, 1991, a day after the presentation of the Union budget, “to ensure that the message of his budget did not get distorted by less-than-enthusiastic officials”, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote in his book “To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story” that recounts the fast-paced changes that took place after Rao became Prime Minister in June 1991.
“The finance minister explained his budget -- calling it ‘a budget with a human face’. He painstakingly defended the proposals to increase fertiliser, petrol and LPG prices,” Ramesh recounted in the book published in 2015. Ramesh was an aide to Rao during his initial months in office. Sensing the disquiet in the Congress ranks, Rao called a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) on August 1, 1991, and decided to allow party MPs to “vent their spleen freely”.
“The Prime Minister stayed away and allowed Manmohan Singh to face the flak on his own,” Ramesh wrote, adding that two more meetings took place on August 2 and 3, in which Rao was present throughout.
