“In the budget 2008-2009, the Finance Minister has announced a number of incentives and conesions to the agricultural sector, the most important being 100 per cent waiver of loans and interest to farmers holding up to two hectares and 25 per cent rebate for one-time-settlement for farmers holding more than two hectares. Together, these are expected to cost the government a whopping Rs 60,000 crore. This is a welcome and much-needed relief to debt-ridden farmers and, perhaps, necessary to boost the growth of agriculture sector. Poultry industry was hoping for a similar relief to poultry farmers also, who are facing the worst crisis in 30 years. We appeal to the Finance Minister to consider the gravity of the crisis faced by poultry farmers and extend the benefit of loan and interest waiver to poultry farmers also. We request that at least small and marginal poultry farmers having up to 50,000 birds should be given the same treatment as agricultural farmers and their loans should be waived. For others in the industry, we request the government to provide interest subvention of 8 per cent to enable to them to tide over the crisis.:

Vikas Joshi, chairman and managing director, Harbinger Group

"With a 20 per cent increase in education budget, one might say that the first step has been taken towards recognizing education as a strategic driver of long term growth. In particular, a budgetary allocation to set up new institutes of higher education is a welcome move. With a growing knowledge economy, Indian IT industry will need a lot of talent that has been trained at institutions of eminence. The setting up of IIT's as well as other institutions will help in this direction. The INSPIRE scholarships should help identify and encourage budding talent at early stage. This, too, can have long term benefits."

Ajit Kamath, chairman and managing Director, Arch Pharmalabs Ltd.

At a macro level, the Waiver of Agri Loans is a lopsided populist approach towards Economic Development. It is not an inclusive approach. Similar sops should have been extended to SSIs and other industrial units hit by cheap imports, tax havens within India leading to mass migration and the weakening dollar. Unlike industrial units who are blacklisted by the RBI to block fresh loans, farmers continue to be eligible for fresh loans!

H P Srivastava, vice chairman, Nagar Road Industries Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture

“Reduction in Central Excise duty from 16 per to 14 per cent is a welcome step considering the proposed plan of Government to move to the single GST rate instead of Excise Duty and Service Tax. Similarly, the rationalization of personal income tax rates also deserves appreciation. The biggest disappointment has come from the fact that no road map has been laid out for implementation of GST, which is suppose to be implemented in the year 2009 – 10 as declared by the Finance Minister in the previous budgets. The industry has been eagerly awaiting for this as it is considered to be one of the major step in moving towards single value added tax instead of multiple tax regime.”

Ravi Pandit, chairman & Group CEO of KPIT Cummins