Fiscal Accountability Crisis: India's Taxpayer Class Demands Tangible Returns Ahead of 2026 Budget

As Budget 2026 approaches, India's salaried middle class is escalating demands for fiscal transparency and tangible public service returns, challenging the government's expenditure narrative. Taxpayers cite systemic failures—including hazardous air quality triggering work-from-home advisories in Delhi-NCR, deteriorating urban infrastructure with potholed roads and non-functional streetlights, and inadequate public health and education access—as evidence of mismatched fiscal inputs and civic outputs. With expanding revenue streams from income tax, GST, and cesses bolstering central fiscal capacity, citizens are explicitly questioning the allocation efficiency of their contributions. This pre-budget sentiment reflects a broader shift from passive tax compliance to active accountability advocacy, urging Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to explicitly link tax policy with measurable quality-of-life metrics rather than abstract macroeconomic indicators. The emerging taxpayer discourse signals a critical inflection point in public finance governance, where expenditure justification becomes as scrutinized as revenue collection.