* The cost of basic necessity products should reduce. If that happens, the profit margin that we as storeowners get also increases. We usually get 5 per cent as profit margin. Also, prices have increased tremendously—when that happens, it becomes difficult to convince customers to pay higher prices. They often blame us.
—Jignesh Gala, owner of Anjali General Stores at Andheri

* Food grains and household fuel prices and other daily commodity prices should come down so that I can buy and stock up. Service Tax in hotels should be relaxed so that one can think of going out with families more often for a meal. We are waiting for petrol prices to come down too, so that we can take our car out of the garage more often.
—Jyoti Mehta, housewife

* The budget should encourage public private partnership (PPP) initiatives in primary healthcare and also formulate a national telemedicine policy for making this facility available and accessible to all, especially those in rural areas. The need of the hour is to further increase spending on health so that it can be accessible and affordable to all. The budget should encourage manufacturers to set up units for high-end equipment and give them tax breaks and sops for setting up these units, to lower the cost of diagnostic equipments.

Also, push the growth of health insurance by reducing capital requirements.
—Pramod Lele CEO, PD Hinduja Hospital

* Health is very crucial for overall development. With emphasis given on AIDS last year, I hope this year’s Union budget has a provision for malaria and other vector-borne diseases that pose a major challenge. Another area linked to better health is poor sanitation and overcrowding, leading to worse health conditions especially in urban areas. The budget should tackle these issues.
—Dr M E Yeolekar, director of medical research and education, BMC

* There should be sops for infrastructure projects including hospitality and hotel construction, since the benefit of the five-year exemption on sales tax to builders will be over in the next two years. The lending rate on home loans and borrowings for construction should be lowered because the impact of the growing economy will be visible only if lending rates are lower.
—Dilawar Nensey, Jt MD of Royal Palms

* There should be a substantial allocation in the budget for the disabled.
—Jamshed Mistry, advocate

* We expect the government to give tax holiday for the city’s taximen. As we are currently modernising the fleet—from Padmini Fiat to better and comfortable cabs—we would want the Finance Minister to exempt new cars from excise and sops for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). It would help the financially weak taxi drivers to opt for better cars with cheap fuel.”
—A L Quadros, General Secretary, Mumbai Taximen’s Union

* We need funds for infrastructure projects. Also, the finance minister had plans for making Mumbai an international financial centre in 2005. Even after three years, there is no sign of Mumbai becoming a financial centre. The economy needs to open up.
—Narinder Nayar, chairman, Bombay First