CII analysis beamed to homes

kolkata: in just an hour, india inc’s mood turned from much gham to some khushi as the budget analysis unfolded at the confederation of indian industry headquarters in new delhi on thursday. it reached the homes via star news courtesy ndtv’s prannoy roy and his team who joined corporate india for the initial reactions. when the camera turned from sinha to cii director general tarun das, he hadn’t quite recovered from the “sting in the tail� - the dividend tax and surcharge levied on personal income-tax.“i am glad my expectations were not too high,� das said. “psychologically, everyone feels bad about tax,� morgan stanley cmd nimesh kampani explained. the show’s anchor prannoy roy quipped: “sinha always has a surcharge to levy in his budgets. first there was kargil, then came drought, followed by earthquake and finally security this year.� cii chairman sanjiv goenka called it an achievable, deliverable budget. his expectations were low. the ‘low expectation’ bug seemed to have bitten nearly everyone on the show. perhaps, a case of once bitten, twice shy. they had all waxed eloquently last year only to backtrack later. “it certainly does not have the hype of the previous year,� admitted union law and company affairs minister arun jaitley, who arrived to defend the budget along with planning commission member n.k. singh and financial advisor rakesh mohan. singh though, felt the finance minister did have an option to slash small savings interest by 100 basis points instead of 50, given the low inflation in the economy. bharti enterprises cmd sunil bharti mittal was happy with the budget. “it has a clear direction. the speech could have been better written. the punch is missing,� he deduced. both mittal and at&t managing director virat bhatia were bound to praise sinha given the sops offered to the telecom sector. pricewaterhousecoopers senior partner amal ganguli too voted for the budget. “this is not a speech for hyperbole. the attention given to infrastructure is welcome as is the attention to debt recovery in banks,� he felt. ganguli felt easing of overseas investment norms would throw up more indian mncs. the first signs of someone really cut up was when the camera panned to nasscom president phiroz vandrevala. he was unhappy about sinha’s u-turn on the promised 10-year tax holiday to software industry which had been reduced to 90 per cent. “you can’t be flippant,� he said. dr reddy’s laboratories coo satish reddy and max india ltd chairman analjit singh criticised the finance minister for not doing anything for the pharma and insurance sector. the latter was, in fact, peeved over the service tax levied on the fledgling industry.