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The big guns of industry came, made notes, ate breadsticks, watched bemusedly as two TV journalists came to blows over panelist Pawan Goenka, president, automotive sector, Mahindra & Mahindra, and then left quietly — not expecting much from the interim budget, not getting much either.
“Very ambivalent,” is how Satish Kaura of Samtel summed up his own and his colleagues’ mood. “(We are) Not very excited right now”.
Indian industry was united in the view that it didn’t expect much from P Chidambaram's budget with the government gearing up for elections.
“As expected, largely a non-event, today being an interim budget,” said Subodh Bhargava, chairman of Tata Communications Ltd, and independent director on boards of several companies. “We saw a listing of 10 years of UPA’s achievements. To project a decade means that last year nothing happened. The government has nothing of last year to talk about.”
Some saw a glimmer of hope in what Chidambaram promised, especially excise breaks for capital goods, and in better fiscal deficit numbers. But they said they would wait to see if the next government would continue with these measures.
“He has given a good enough direction — lowering of fiscal deficit, export orientation,” said Dhruv Sawhney, chairman of Triveni Turbines, who said the budget might prove to be good for the capital goods sector, which has languished for five years. But, he added, infrastructure and power generation were still a huge problem.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Sidharth Birla, president of FICCI: “It is heartening to see that the fiscal deficit and current account deficit has been contained. One good thing is that the Finance Minister has held himself back from any populist announcements.”
Harsh Pati Singhania, director, JK Organisation, chose to look at it differently. “The specific issue is the time it will take for the benefits to come in. This also means that the next government will have to continue to give push to manufacturing by cutting prices and boosting demand,” he said
A quick panel formed by CII and headed by its president S Gopalakrishnan evaded a question on whether the government had disappointed by not touching on retroactive taxation of foreign investment. In fact, Chidambaram has said more investigations would be launched against Indian entities holding accounts abroad.
But one sector that was happy with the budget was automobiles. “If we as industry need more relief than this, then we are in trouble,” said Goenka. “Of course, (we will cut prices). If we don’t cut prices, we are not doing our job”.
