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The India Budget Files
is a four-part blog series that looks beyond Budget speeches and headlines to examine how India’s public finances actually work.
Using official government data, the series breaks the Union Budget into four simple lenses: earnings, spending, balance sheet strength, and global context. Instead of reacting to annual announcements, it focuses on multi-year trends, structural shifts, and the trade-offs embedded in fiscal decision-making.
The objective is to help readers read India’s Budget the way decision-makers do. Each chapter builds on the previous one.
What the 2026 Budget Actually Delivered
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
Feb 84 min read
Chapter 5 - When the Numbers Settle
India vs the United States: Two Budgets, Two Economic Realities
Comparing budgets across countries is often misleading. Different nations tax differently. They spend for different reasons. And they carry very different social and institutional responsibilities. Yet, when done carefully, a comparison can reveal how economic models shape fiscal choices. This post in The India Budget Files places India’s Union Budget alongside that of the United States, not to rank them, but to understand why they look the way they do. Part 1: How the Rupee
Jan 285 min read
India’s Debt in Global Context: GDP, Income Growth, & Interest Costs
India’s fiscal story cannot be understood in isolation. Debt, deficits, and interest costs only make sense when viewed relative to economic size, growth capacity, and financing conditions. This blog places India’s numbers alongside major global economies to answer three questions: How does India’s debt-to-GDP ratio compare globally? How does GDP per capita growth change the way we read that debt? What really matters more, the amount of debt, or the cost of carrying it? 1. Deb
Jan 264 min read
Chapter 4 - India in a Global Context
India’s Debt Story: Growth, Cost, & What to Watch
Debt is one of the most discussed, and least calmly analysed, aspects of public finance. This post looks at India’s debt as a balance sheet item, not as a headline risk. Debt Has Grown - Predictably Between FY 2020-21 and FY 2024-25, total debt has increased steadily each year. Internal debt remains the dominant component. External debt is a much smaller share and has grown gradually. This is not unusual for a large, growing economy investing in infrastructure and services. I
Jan 202 min read
What the Government Owns & What It Owes
Most people know how to read a company’s balance sheet. Very few realise that the Government of India also publishes one. Maybe, not as a headline number. But as a structured statement of assets, liabilities, and net position. This post is about introducing that balance sheet, and making it intuitive. India Has a Balance Sheet Too. At its simplest, India’s balance sheet answers one question. What does the government own, and what does it owe? Just like a company, the balance
Jan 204 min read
Chapter 3 - Inside India's Balance Sheet
A Closer Look at the Fastest-Growing Ministries
When budgets expand, not all ministries grow equally. A handful absorb a disproportionate share of incremental spending, and that concentration usually tells us more about policy direction than headline allocations ever do. Looking at expenditure growth over the last five years, five ministries stand out, not just for how much their budgets increased, but for how differently that money is being used. This deep dive looks at where the additional spending is actually landing in
Jan 153 min read
How Spending Across Ministries & Departments Have Evolved
Budgets don’t reveal priorities through speeches. They reveal them through what keeps getting more money, year after year. If you strip the Union Budget of commentary and look only at how ministry-level spending has grown since 2020-21, a clear picture emerges: India isn’t just spending more, it’s spending differently. Some parts of the state are expanding rapidly. Others are stabilising. And a few are quietly stepping back. This chapter looks at where government spending h
Jan 143 min read
Chapter 2 - Where the Money Actually Goes
Chapter 1 - How India Earns & Spends
How One Rupee Explains India’s Budget
Budgets are usually discussed in trillions of rupees. But the most intuitive way to understand public finance is far simpler: What does one rupee of government income actually consist of? And where does that rupee finally go? Comparing the composition of a single rupee in FY 2020-21 and FY 2024-25 reveals how India’s fiscal structure has evolved, and why some recent policy choices make sense in that context. Part 1: Where One Rupee Comes From - A Shift Within Tax Revenues Tax
Jan 84 min read
What 5 Years of CAGR Trends Really Tell Us
Budgets are usually discussed one year at a time. But governments don’t operate in single-year snapshots, they evolve through multi-year compounding trends. Looking at CAGR growth between FY 2020-21 and FY 2024-25 offers a far more reliable way to understand how India’s revenue engines and spending priorities have actually changed. This piece focuses on what has consistently grown, what has slowed, and what has structurally declined, and why these patterns matter more than an
Jan 73 min read
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