Finance information

In a year that witnessed the impact of one of the worst global financial crises on the Indian economy, the architect of many a budget including the famous ‘dream budget’, P Chidambaram moved out of the Finance Ministry to the neighbouring Home Ministry to deal with terrorism in the wake of Mumbai attacks.

Though it was a sort of home coming for Chidambaram, who had served the same ministry as a junior minister, in-charge of internal security 22 years ago, the Finance Minsitry’s loss is turning out to be Home Ministry’s gain.

Chidambaram had to leave the reins of the economy and as Home Minister, he lost no time to get into action and successfully piloted an important bill in Parliament for setting National Investigation Agency to effectively deal with terrorism.

The Prime Minister chose to field Chidambaram to reply to finance related discussions and he blunted the Opposition’s onslaught on economic issues in Parliament.

Having presented the last budget for 2008-09 in July, he also saw to it that two batches of supplementary demands for grants seeking to raise public expenditure were approved by Parliament.

In order to step up spending to boost growth, the Government raised the public expenditure by Rs 1.47 lakh crore, over and above the Rs 7.5 lakh crore envisaged originally in the budget.