The unique criticality of the Annual Budget 2022 stems from the fact that it comes amid a transition from the pandemic-ridden society towards more or less a normal life. Capacities of the government were found in abyss and expectations of the public were quite high. In this limited space, the government may also be facing an unavoidable temptation of catering to the interests of the population of the poll-bound states. Finance Ministers' Budget speech, of course, had no way out other than striking a balance between these three aspects. The Economic Survey of India 2022 has already pegged the country's GDP growth at 9.2 per cent for the ensuing fiscal. Fiscal deficit for FY22 has been settled at 6.9 per cent which will further go down to 6.4 per cent in FY23. This unusually high fiscal deficit figure gave the government a headroom for bringing in the much-needed capital spending. But still the government's hands are tied to a significant extent. To be more concrete, the government broadly set before itself four key priority areas — infrastructure development, productivity enhancement, financing investments and energy transition and climate action. In this light, one of the prime highlights of the Budget 2022 is an overwhelming target for capital expenditure. On-Budget expenditure for capex has been raised to 7.5 lakh crore from 5.5 lakh crore in the previous budget — an increase of 34 per cent. This is indeed a major boost and could potentially solve a couple of interlinked problems by creating short-term employment at the ground level, promoting investment and assisting production processes through enhanced transportation and other infrastructure. In contrast, less focus has been laid on developing social infrastructure which is no less important at this juncture. Emphasising on 'inclusive development', the finance minister announced the procurement of 1,208 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and paddy from 163 lakh farmers. She announced direct payment of MSP worth Rs 2.37 lakh crore to wheat and paddy farmers. Apart from this, the government also focussed on other novel aspects like Kisan drones and organic farming. It is heartening to see that a significant part of the Budget is focussed on addressing the concerns of agriculturists — who only very recently backed from their protest at Delhi borders. Though the key concern of the farmers has been around legalisation of MSP rather than just a discretionary allocation of whatever scale. Political analysts are associating the move with assembly elections in the northern belt. Whatever be the reason, a major focus on the large agricultural community is indeed a good sign. The finance minister has further announced an allocation of Rs 60,000 for 'Har Ghar Jal' Mission and Rs 48,000 crore for PM Awas Yojana in FY23. The target beneficiaries of the two programmes mostly consist of rural population. Given the unfathomable negative impact of the pandemic on the social sector, the government was genuinely expected to at least lay the groundwork to pull critical sectors like health and education out of the flux. This, however, was only scantily evident in the FMs Budget speech. In the education sector, the Centre has proposed to set up a digital university to facilitate access to education. It has also expanded the educational TV scheme from 12 to 200 channels. The fact remains that even after so many years of operations, educational TV channels continue to be plagued with basic challenges around quality and reach. Rather than just counting on numbers, the focus should have been towards making the content engaging and relatable to the students. It must also be reiterated at this point that the 'digital platform' itself is highly inaccessible and exclusionary. A lopsided focus on 'digital' could overshadow other important aspects of the education system that need to be dealt with currently. At a time when the education sector was so badly hit countrywide, particularly in rural India, more deep-rooted allocations were expected from the Budget. The Budget speech was also silent on health expenditure. On the other hand, Budgetary focus on clean energy is indeed laudable. In the first place, the finance minister made an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore in the production-linked incentives scheme. This will certainly provide some boost to the existing solar capacity in India and take the country closer towards the fulfilment of targets announced domestically and internationally. Another major development towards green transition has been the announcement of battery swapping policy in coming days. Lack of charging infrastructure is one of the key roadblocks towards adoption of electric vehicles in India. A robust policy on battery swapping could potentially provide an alternative support to the charging infrastructure. It can also prove to be useful in making EVs a commonplace among consumers. The Budget also contains provisions for issuance of green bonds. It appears to be a good revenue route to fund the great scale of green infrastructure needed in the country. It remains to be seen how attractive and popular these bonds will go on to become in the coming years. Another major announcement in the Budget has been around the issuance of digital rupee. This coincided with the decision to tax any income from transfer of virtual digital assets at 30 per cent. This may actually be hard-hitting for prospective and existing Crypto supporters. Though nothing as such cryptocurrency was mentioned in the Budget speech. It might just be seen as a consolidation of the government's stance on the crypto market over the past few months. The decision clearly seeks to limit and regulate the booming market and introduce a sort of Central Bank Digital Currency. Towards boosting investment, the government has expanded ECLGS till March 2023 while also broadening the guarantee cover by Rs 50,000 crore. This, however, is more of an indirect support to attract investors during this grim pandemic period. It appears to be a positive step though. To conclude, it can be said that the government tried to cover the areas it prioritises with the limited fiscal headroom it had but neglect of critical sectors like health and education may be hurting.