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Top finance ministry officials and members of Planning Commission on Friday gave a thumbs up to the Union Budget 2003-2004 saying Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had laid out a roadmap for greater flow of investment and industrial growth.
Chief economic advisor to the government Ashok Lahri said, "the balance in the Budget is a delicate one owing to fiscal deficit of 5.9 per cent, which is quite high. But the thrust of the infrastructure is laudable."
Reacting to the budgetary proposals, Planning Commission member N K Singh said it would "brighten investment prospects and send right kind of signal to the stock market, industry, telecom and other sectors."
Asked whether he thought the Budget had given away too much on the revenue front, Revenue Secretary C S Rao said compared to last year the revenues have started looking up and hoped that the trend would continue.
Significantly there is an attempt in the Budget to bring more services into the tax net, he said.
On the Rs 9000 crore (Rs 90 billion) shortfall in the direct tax collections, he said it was because of the optimistic assumption of last year.
However, he said the growth projected in the collection of direct taxes this year was achievable.
Allaying fears of the rise in fiscal deficit, expenditure secretary D C Gupta expressed confidence it will be contained and said a beginning in this direction has already been made with efforts to control non-plan expenditure.
He said there has been a net saving in expenditure and the fiscal deficit has been pegged at the higher 5.6 per cent due to shortfall in receipts.
This shortfall is due to lower GDP projections primarily on account of poor agricultural performance, he added.
PTI