If No 3 is lucky for Pranab, he should sack his numerologist

Last year, Pranab Mukherjee presented a budget in which several new programmes had outlays of exactly Rs 300 crore each.

Why Rs 300 crore?

Even as listeners of his budget speech were puzzling over the Rs 300 crore number that was being repeated in paragraph after paragraph, Mukherjee put them out of their misery by confessing that ‘Three’ was his lucky number.

He said: “Hon’ble Members may be curious as to why all these new initiatives are being launched with an allocation of Rs 300 crore. Well, the number 3 happens to be my lucky number!”

Here’s the complete list of schemes that got exactly Rs 300 crore in allocations last year - almost in his own words.

• Rs 300 crore to promote 60,000 pulses villages in rainfed areas for increasing crop productivity and strengthening market linkages.

• Rs 300 crore to bring 60,000 hectares under oil palm plantation, by integrating the farmers with the markets. The initiative was to yield 3 lakh metric tonnes of palm oil.

• Rs 300 crore for implementation of a vegetable initiative to set in motion a virtuous cycle of higher production and incomes for farmers.

• Rs 300 crore to promote higher production of nutri-cereals like bajra, jowar, ragi and other millets, and upgrade their processing technologies and create awareness regarding their health benefits.

• Rs 300 crore for the National Mission for Protein Supplements to encourage production of foods rich in animal protein and other nutrients.

• Rs 300 crore to increase the production of fodder through intensive promotion of technologies to ensure its availability throughout the year under an Accelerated Fodder Development Programme to benefit farmers in 25,000 villages.

We do not know how all these Rs 300 crore schemes have fared, but we seriously doubt No 3 is Pranab Mukherjee’s lucky number.

Reason: last year’s budget was Mukherjee’s third one under the UPA, and it has been a disaster through and through, with almost no projection in revenues or expenditure being achieved during the year. Not on growth, not on inflation, not on fiscal deficit, not on anything.

Conversely, if last year’s budget was Mukherjee’s “lucky” budget, one wonders what will happen to this year’s budget - when his luck may have run out.

Either way, maybe Pranab-da should sack his numerologist.