More than half the respondents of a pre-Budget survey think this annualexercise doesn’t impact their daily lives. Even as Pranab Mukherjee rises to present the Union Budget in Parliamentat 11 am on Monday, a nationwide survey reveals that most Indian householdsthink this annual exercise has no significant effect on their daily lives.

Adding to this, a majority (60 per cent) of the 5,468 households surveyed,covering different income groups, said the Budget document did not make muchsense to them and a quarter of the respondents derided the relevance of theexercise because they believed most policy decisions were taken outside theBudget anyway.

The survey, conducted by UTVi-CVoter to gauge the expectations of ordinarycitizens from the Budget, found that the majority wanted the Budget to be aless secretive document and easier to understand.

In 2008-09, when the global economic crisis started impacting India, 48 percent of the respondents revealed that their expenditure had gone up and incomeswere static while around 20 per cent experienced a surge in expenditure anddeclining income.

The survey revealed that nearly 75 per cent of the respondents felt an incomeof Rs 50,000 a month is enough for a family of four with nearly a third sayingincomes should be made tax-free.

The survey also found that the quality of life of around 65 per cent of Indianhouseholds has deteriorated in the past one year because of rising prices,especially of food articles. The inflation rate has remained below 3 per centsince December 2008 and entered negative territory three weeks ago.

Besides rising prices of food, prices of other items like cooking gas, localtransport, airfares, education, fuel prices, property rentals, healthcare andeven expensive domestic help have significantly increased the cost of livingfor the average Indian household.

As far as the future outlook on the quality of life is concerned, publicopinion is divided with 38 per cent saying the quality of life will be static,another 38 per cent predicting an improvement, with the rest expecting adeterioration in the next year.