Indian media offers cautious budget reaction
Daily newspapers welcomed Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's wide-ranging plans for tax reforms, infrastructure and a social safety net for the poor.
But there were questions over whether New Delhi could carry out its ambitious agenda while constrained by slowing revenues and a ballooning fiscal deficit.
Total expenditure is set to cross 10 trillion rupees (206 billion dollars) in the current fiscal year, and Mukherjee said Monday the deficit is expected to be 6.8 percent of GDP -- the highest in nearly two decades.
The Indian Express was complimentary, calling the document "sensible and pragmatic" with "achievable" reforms.
It said the reaction of the stock market -- where the benchmark 30-share Sensex tumbled to close 5.83 percent lower following the budget -- was due mostly to media hype rather than investor fears.
"The exigencies of 24-hour cable news, in particular, may have played a part" in raising expectations, it wrote.
The Hindustan Times, while more cautious in its verdict, agreed that there had been "unrealistic expectations" of strong market reforms.
The paper carried the editorial headline "In your hands, not in your face," and said Mukherjee delivered a "subtle" budget with a "heroic" social safety plan.
The Hindu said little attention had been paid to the role of the corporate sector in fuelling the economy, which grew by 6.7 percent in the year ended March 31 -- the slowest since 2003 and down from nine percent a year earlier.
Noting that corporate tax rates remained unchanged, the paper said: "There is nothing in the budget that is particularly significant or dramatic enough to change the mood of uncertainty and pessimism that has gripped business and industry."
The Business Standard took issue with the government's silence on the long-awaited disinvestment of the country's burdensome public sector companies and suggested it was part of a broader vision. link.....
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