SIMPLY PUT: There may be no tax cuts but cooking oil, food products and apparel may get cheaper

Hey, we know we’re a day late, but it’s the budget week, which feels like a year in itself if you’re in a newsroom.

Those who got your budget news from all the memes floating on the internet are sitting assured that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not leave anything on the table for the cola sipping, Insta reeling middle class. That’s only partly true.

According to many accounts, the following meme can be a summary of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech. But that’s not entirely true, either.


The government may not have yielded to demands for a tax cut, but it has made an attempt to make things cheaper by cutting the import duty on inputs that go into making stuff like apparel, jewellery and food products.

So, for example, if oilseeds get cheaper, then it will be cheaper to make edible oils, whose prices have surged enormously since the pandemic due to the spike in the cost of palm oil imported from Malaysia. India imports 60% of the edible oil it consumes, more than half of it is palm oil.

In other news, this will help companies like Adani Wilmar, Marico, Godrej and other companies that sell cooking oil by bringing their costs down.

The import duty on all kinds of textiles — whether it’s fabric, garments or yarn — has been cut by half. This can make the cost of making apparel cheaper.


Now, whether the companies pass on this cost to the consumer, that’s on them to decide and for you, as a consumer to demand.

The government’s argument is that yes, rising inflation is a problem, but there is more than one way to tackle it. Whether it works or not, we will find out in a few months.

But that’s just one of the many complaints against this budget.

Watch this video for the other issues raised after the budget and the government’s response so far.