Arun Jaitley unveils pro-poor budget: Experts

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley unveiled a budget for the poor on Monday, announcing new rural aid and health programmes in a strategy shift that could boost his ruling party in coming state elections.

Radhika Rao, economist, DBS, Singapore

"It is encouraging to see that fiscal discipline has been given priority at today's budget, though we await the fine-print. Budgetary assumptions, especially nominal GDP growth will be key. Implementation of the pay commission proposals is also unclear in the speech, so more details are also sought here. Focus on rural/ social sector spending and roads/ highways are along expected lines and positive. But less-than-expected support for banks' recapitalisation has disappointed. Services tax was left unchanged and long-term capital gains tax fears were left misplaced."

Milind Kothari, managing partner and head, Direct Tax, BDO India
"The allocation for bank capitalisation of 25,000 crore rupees (250 billion rupees) is only a patch on the 1,80,000 crores that the Economic Survey has identified as the need of this vital sector. The banking sector has a major role to play in spurring private investment which is lacking and without which the all-round economic revival is not a possibility."

Yoginder K Alagh, farm expert and former member planning commission

"These steps will help our millions of farmers recover from the rough patch they have been going through but the government will have to raise its allocation for the crop insurance scheme, as the gap between farmers' cost on farming and their loss, if any, is huge.

"Although I welcome higher allocation for irrigation, we need to see its implementation. The government has been raising its irrigation spending every year, but we've failed to bring any extra area under irrigation facility. How does higher allocation help then?"