Budgets are designed to communicate intent. Revised estimates tell us what actually happened. As the final note in The India Budget Files, this blog steps away from speeches and headlines and looks only at how Budget 2025-26 played out once execution met reality,  across revenues, expenditure, ministries, and the balance sheet. What emerges is not a story of fiscal stress or excess, but one of deliberate trade-offs, uneven execution, and cautious rebalancing. 1. Revenue & Exp