Gujarat State Small Industries Federation has decried it and said that while the budget will please the common man, the industry has in no way benefited from it.

“This is a populist budget and a good one at that. While the general reduction in excise duty is a welcome move, we’ll have to wait to see where the money will come from,” said Vimal Ambani, Managing Director, Tower Overseas Ltd.

Rajesh Gandhi, MD Vadilal Industries Ltd said, “While the move to write off the farmers’ loans is definitely a good one, we were expecting some agricultural reforms. The budget comes as a setback for the food-processing sector.”

Chirag Mehta, MD Icenet, said, the treatment meted out to the IT sector will propel thousands of big IT firms to crowd in the SEZs to seek tax benefits, while hardly removing any of the obstacles being faced by the smaller firms. Lalit Lahoty, Vice President Fujitsu Consulting India, Pvt. Ltd also echoed similar sentiments. “We have really not seen any of the demands being addressed. Dwarfing all other demands was the extension of STPI scheme and the same has not been addressed at all. This would mean that there is a big difference between the STPI and the SEZ. This would only benefit the big software companies. The smaller IT companies cannot dream of setting up an SEZ unit of their own and leasing an office in SEZ would continue to be a very costly affair,” he said.

Mani Iyer, director, Intas Biopharmaceuticals Limited said the budget missed a good opportunity to set up a fund that would encourage entrepreneurship in biotechnology. “Overall, the budget will spur a lot of public investment infrastructure, which should help business in general. A reduction in corporate tax or surcharges could have spurred more investment from the industry,” he added.