Finance Secretary TV Somanathan says that the word revadi is not in the lexicon of the Finance Ministry. "It is a colloquial term. There are merit goods that a society ought to provide to everybody. Look at education and primary health, things which government ought to provide, and providing them I would not categorise as populist or use the word revadi which I learnt in the past six months. I did not know that till it came in finance dictionary. So I think there are merit goods, primary education, these are not revadis by any structure of education. Similarly nutrition which a society needs to provide to everybody. So going beyond there are actually things that are private goods, that people should choose and buy with their own money. When you start providing from public funds, there is nothing wrong in it, But what it does is it takes funds away from greater priorities which could be better for the better effects of economy."
