Sudhir Jalan, past president of Ficci and Vice President of Sicpa India Ltd

I am very pleased with the first Budget of Jaswant Singh. Positive moves have far exceeded the negative ones. The impetus to the industry has been very high particularly in the infrastructure sector. Look at the wide range of the spheres that he has touched beginning with health, textiles, tourism, ports, airports, roads, tyre, tea and coffee industry. You name a sector and it is there.

One of the major shortcomings of the Budget is that the corporate tax surcharge has not been removed fully. Dividend tax has been put around 12 and a half per cent. The second shortcoming is the two and a half per cent surcharge above Rs 850,000.

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has accepted Vijay Kelkar committee report in parts. In any case we did not expect him to accept the report in toto.

On the question of whether this Budget is populist, I would say yes. While presenting the Budget the finance minister kept his vote bank in view. I would not find fault with him on that count. But nothing has been done at the cost of the economy. If we keep this yardstick in mind it would be unfair to say that he has gone overboard and presented an extremely populist budget.

The budget deficit is very high at 5.6 per cent. And this is a cause of worry. The stimulation give to the industry would do a world of good to our industrial development. Since the foreign exchange reserves are sound I do not see this harming the economy.

As told to Onkar Singh in New Delhi