It seems there is more action outside the budget than inside. At the post-budget presser, the finance minister went out of the budgetary box to assert that he would not wait for growth to trickle down, something that could take about 20 years even with high growth. His plan is to reach the bottom directly to help them help themselves. Decades of work – by the iconic Shoaib Sultan Khan in Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) and, more recently, the disarmingly charming Amjad Saqib under the banner of AKHUWAT – has demonstrated that it is possible.