Had distress been driving poor people to work, FWPR would have risen fastest for the poorest deciles of the rural population. In fact, rise has been slowest for the poorest decile, from 16.5% to just 19%. It has risen fastest for the top two deciles, from 19.4% and 19.9% to 32.6% and 33.5%, respectively. This is encouraging.
There were no big, populist measures with an eye on polls. The intent to upgrade passenger train bogeys to Vande Bharat standards and creation of a Rs 1 lakh crore corpus with 50-year interest-free loans for tech savvy youth were among the most exciting parts of an otherwise boring budget