Participating in a post-budget discussion here on Monday, economists felt that the budget should have at least indicated a medium-term strategy for addressing critical areas.

Renowned economist Arjun Sengupta said that though Union budget could not bring in huge changes, it should have outlined a medium-term strategy for addressing important areas.

Bibek Debroy of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) said that the current budget was a tax budget only and it had no policy initiatives. "The budget has not done anything to push growth rate," said Debroy. He stressed that constitution of expenditure commission and scrapping of subsidies were not the right ways to reduce expenditure, there were other better ways to curb it.

BB Bhattacharya of the Institute of Economic Growth said that amount of fiscal deficit didn't matter much if its constitution was growth-oriented. "I won't mind one per cent more fiscal deficit if that one per cent comes to public investment," he said.

Bhattacharya said that the interest rates needed to be brought down further for fiscal reforms having any impact on the financial sector.

Ashok Lahiri of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy said that though the fiscal deficit situation had not crossed the point of no return, if the present situation continued, the country will have to face severe problems on this count.

Lahiri said that the enhancement in revenue collection could not be brought at a slow pace and that there was a need to improve tax administration and removing exemptions. He added that the entire tax administration should be computerized at an accelerated pace. Lahiri said that phased withdrawal of tax exemption on exports will not cause much harm.

Questioning whether 16 per cent Cenvat introduced in the budget really meant a single rate considering the exemptions and three special excise duties, Lahiri said that the Cenvat should be rationalised further and it should be made a real single rate. Pranab Sen from the Planning Commission said that Cenvat will put an immediate cap on the misuse of Modvat. But the flip side was that average excise burden will go up slightly, he added. Sen pointed out that projections made in the budget relating to excise collection were unrealistic.