The recession-hit Indian industry was by and large disappointed with the interim budget presented by acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, as the expected sector-specific tax sops failed to materialise, with no changes in direct or indirect taxes.

The realty sector, which has been leading the call for sops, was particularly disappointed, as it was looking forward to a relaxation of Section 80 IB(10) of the Income Tax Act, with tax breaks extended for housing projects with flats of less than 1,500 sq feet. However;but this has been restricted to projects begun before 31 March 2007. An increase in tax breaks provided to house-builders from 20 per cent to 40 per cent was also expected, but did not happen.

"It was completely a non-event. It was more a political statement than an interim budget. There was nothing for any sector, forget about real estate," Parsvnath Developers chairman Pradeep Jain said. ''It's a non-event for the entire corporate world - it's merely a populist budget.''

Lalit Kumar Jain, chairman of Kumar builders and a spokesman for the sector, said, ''The policy changes in 1998 really boosted the activity and kick-started growth in GDP through real estate development. The government and all stakeholders need to do much more than what's been done.''

"It's an extremely dry budget,'' added Ravi Ramu, chief financial officer of realty group Puravankara.

TCS executive director and chief financial officer S Mahalingam was unhappy that two stimulus packages given in the past couple of months were going to remain unchanged. "I am disappointed," he said.

However, other industry reactions were more moderate. Stating that the government did not have much choice, Hinduja Group chief financial officer Prabal Banerjee said, "They did the best they could."

Uday Kotak, managing director of financial major Kotak Mahindra, said, "Acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has stuck to what is good convention."
''I was not expecting much from this,'' said Sajjan Jindal of JSW Steel, referring to the interim budget. ''For the next two-three months, we are going to have a policy freeze but monetary policies will address some factors like interest rates,'' he added.

Jahangir Aziz, chief economist of JP Morgan, said there could be a problem of deflation going forward. ''My concern will be about the second half and if till that time, there is lots of government borrowing, there will be trouble.''

The Congress strongly defended the budget. Party spokesman Manish Tewari said, "Our government has done tremendously well and we didn't need a populist budget. We did not play to the gallery and followed the constitution to a 'T' as required in an interim budget."

On the issue of tackling economic recession, Tewari said, "The priority is to protect people who have been affected by the downturn, and for this the government has already done a lot."

Another Congress spokesperson, Minister of State for Home Affairs Shakeel Ahmed, said the budget was a "continuation of the UPA's policies". He said the budget had proposed an increase in allocation of funds to all the sectors, despite it being interim.

Opposition trashes budget: Opposition parties, as expected, lambasted the interim budget, saying it had failed to address the economic recession.

Expressing his party's disappointment, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the interim budget aimed to confuse the people of the country. "It is a temporary budget by a temporary central government and a temporary finance minister. Instead of giving any relief to the common man, the budget aims to confuse people," Naqvi said.

The budget "does not reflect any economic stability and has been prepared keeping in view the upcoming Lok Sabha elections", he added.

Convenor of the BJP-led National Democratic Aliance (NDA), Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal-United, said the government had claimed that "it had done lots of things for youth, farmers and aam aadmi (common man). Actually, it has not done anything at all for these sections". He described it as a "desperate budget".

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Basudeb Acharya said the budget did not address the key issues facing the country, including job cuts and other implications of the economic meltdown. He added that what Mukherjee had presented was a "repetition of President Pratibha Patil's opening address" to the budget session of parliament.

According to Communist Party of India leader Gurudas Dasgupta: "It is an election budget; it is a Sonia (Gandhi) budget, and the platform of the parliament has been misused to launch the Congress party's election crusade."

Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman welcomed the budget but said the government should have give more attention of agriculture. "Farmers should be given more power and water at cheap rates," he said.