THE Budget 2008-09 was projected long before as a "kisan budget' that would announce relief measures adequate enough to mitigate the misery of our farmers who have been reeling under a debt-trap. The expectations were especially high in the case of Punjab's farmers, whose problems of indebtedness and soaring suicide rates could somehow never capture the attention of the policy makers, unlike their counterparts in Andhra, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The fact that this budget would be the last full-term budget of the UPA government since elections are round the corner only served to reaffirm the faith of one and all that it would be a "populist' budget and not spare any effort to please an important section of the vote bank