finance Minister P Chidambaram's budget gave eight flagship programmes 43 per cent more allocation (at Rs 50,015 crore) in the 2006-07 Union budget. Chidambaram took note of the National Commission for Farmers report and reduced the interest rate on short-term credit to farmers to seven per cent for an upper-limit loan of Rs 3,00,000, from the prevailing rate of 9.5 to 10 per cent. The farm credit target has been increased to Rs 1,75,000 crore to bring an additional five million farmers into the institutional credit net. Given that four states and a Union territory are going to the polls this year, it's clear that the government has learnt its lesson the hard way.

This increased spending isn't going to do much to address the need to rein in the fiscal deficit. But what is going to help is the refusal to make allocations for addressing environmental concerns. Sample this. India's hospital waste management got Rs 1 crore, while government residential buildings got Rs 665 crore