If there is one takeaway from these numbers, it is this: Populist politics and good economics don’t mix. The Ladki Bahin scheme, for instance, may have propelled the Mahayuti to a decisive win last year, but it may not be sustainable in the long run. The ruling alliance realises it. Already, the list of recipients has been rationalised, and the promised hike in the Ladki Bahin dole from ₹1,500 to ₹2,100 per month has been quietly dropped. This was necessary to keep the fiscal deficit under 3% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) as per the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. While the political discourse in the state gets coloured by claims and counterclaims about broken promises, a more circumspect approach is needed. The financial muscle for lifting expanded or new welfare schemes is simply not there as the revised fiscal deficit estimate for the current fiscal has overshot the budget estimate. With maximalist positions on welfare payments becoming a political race — a tried and tested method to win elections — it could prove hard for parties to maintain fiscal discipline. But prudence must remain the fiscal mantra.

The other notable feature of the state budget is the almost Napoleonic focus on the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). In the early 19th century, Napoleon III handed over the city of Paris to George Haussmann, who famously turned the city into a titanic building site for the next 20 years but in the end created a Paris the world loves. Mumbai has also been turned into a titanic building site, but instead of a Haussmann, it has bureaucrats of different nodal agencies who don’t always communicate with one another.

The Maharashtra government has envisaged MMR as the engine that will pull the state out of its financial troubles. The finance minister announced the creation of seven new business hubs in MMR like the one at Bandra-Kurla Complex, which is India’s financial nerve centre. In addition, there is the construction of the country’s first offshore port at Vadhvaan, two new airports, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, the completion of the long-delayed Metro lines as also the final stretch of the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway, all of which, Pawar has said, will take MMR to a $1.5-trillion economy by 2047. If these transformative projects come good, Mumbai will become a global finance centre like Singapore or Dubai. However, if these expensive MMR-centric projects fail to take off, not only Mumbai but the rest of the state which has been neglected in this budget, will suffer. The Devendra Fadnavis government has shown its good intention to be fiscally responsible and yet grow the economy. But the road ahead can be hazardous unless the Mahayuti government cracks down on corruption and ensures the timely overhaul of MMR’s infrastructure. That will keep not just Maharashtra’s but also India’s vikas chakra (growth wheel) spinning.