Click to play videoNew Delhi: At the onset of every financial year comes the budget, a grand document reflecting the government's performance during the past fiscal and spelling out it's future plans.
And although the finance ministry would believe what lies in the famous brown brief case is out in the open once the budget is tabled, not many would agree.
“In India, budget is a closed process, it involves only the corporate and industrialists, there is no participation of the common man,” says Communications and Media Associate, CBGA, Bhumika Jhamb.
A survey conducted by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability and Washington-based International Budget Partnership shows that India provides its citizens with only some information about its financial activities.
India's score of 60 on the Open Budget Index places it 13th out of the 85 countries surveyed.
While UK, South Africa, France and United States feature at the top for providing extensive information to its citizens, the worst offenders are Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and Sudan ... for providing scant information.
And experts feel India has a long way to go in terms of ensuring openness of the budget to its citizens.
“It is necessary to tighten the framework of outcome budgeting if we want budgeting transparency to be improved,” says Former CAG of India, VK Kaul.
The report underlines the crying need for public access to budget information and opportunities to participate in the budgetary processes.
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