NEW DELHI, Feb 25: India's government is expected to deliver on promises to overhaul the tax regime and ramp up public spending in its budget Monday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi bids to shore up his sagging reputation as a reformer.
The business-friendly premier came to power almost two years ago with promises to overhaul Asia's third-largest economy and jump-start investment.
But with the halfway point of his term approaching, experts say the budget has to tackle the failure to translate those bold pledges into action while stimulating consumption at the same time.
"This is a make-or-break budget in some ways," Rajrishi Singhal, senior geoeconomics fellow at Gateway House think-tank in Mumbai told AFP.
"People were a little bit disappointed with the last budget. Now is the time for him (Modi) to start impressing people."
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's second budget last year met with a cool response in many quarters for its lack of "big bang" announcements.
And while official forecasts predict the economy will grow an impressive 7.6 per cent over the 2015-16 financial year, it still faces heady challenges.
India's main stocks index has lost nearly a fifth of its value since last year, private investment is weak and the rupee is at its lowest level against the dollar since 2013.
Despite winning a landslide in the lower house in 2014, poisonous relations between his ruling party and the opposition have stalled the passage of Modi's flagship Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the upper house.
While Jaitley has previously outlined his intention to reduce corporate tax from 30 to 25 per cent before the next election, Monday is expected to be the first time he lays out a detailed roadmap to reach that target.    ?AFP