The regional chairman of CII, Sudhir Kapoor, called it a cost-push Budget that promises nothing and precludes any possibility of the much-needed growth.

"We find nothing in this Budget that will excite us to say that growth will take place or investments will come in a big way," Kapoor told reporters at a post-Budget meeting on Saturday.

Similarly, BCCI president Bhaskar Banerjee, said that it was a "lacklustre Budget" and "with no specific signs to boost the economy." He awarded Sinha five points on a 10-point scale. Another BCCI member called this a "vote-oriented" Budget.

The finance minister was praised for starting off with rationalisation of excise andcustoms duties and reduction of the bureaucracy but it was felt that the measures announced were too little. "There is a recognition but no strong statements were made in the downsizing of the bureaucracy. However, I feel that the cumulative excise duty in the end will go up," Kapoor said.Tisco vice-president (marketing & sales) FA Vandrevala was satirical in his reactions. "All the right things have been said in the Budget but nothing has been mentioned about how it should be achieved. It is like a motherhood Budget. There is a tinkering approach. The finance minister has tinkered with everything but there are no revolutionary changes. He has stressed on efficiency rather than effectiveness," he said.

Announcements for the small and medium scale sectors and exports were complimented by the industry. The chief of CII's small-scale sector division, Sanjay Budhia, said excise exemption, enhanced entitlement for credit and more branches of the banks for this sector would certainly give a boost to the small andmedium scale units.

The industry is, however, of the view that too many committees have been announced in the Union Budget. Chairman of Haldia Petrochemicals Tapan Mitra, who was present at the CII press meet, said, "there are so many councils and committees. I have lost track of it."

The members were also critical of the finance minister for not making any statement on the reforms process and insurance sector. Vandrevala lamented the fact that there were no significant measures to improve plan expenditure, which is almost one third that of non-plan expenditure. Plan expenditure has been pegged at Rs 77,000 crore is one-third of the non-plan expenditure of Rs 2,07,003 crore which was Rs 2,13,541 crore in 1998-99.BCCI's Banerjee pointed out that the two long-standing demands of the industry had not been met. Though the emphasis on development was welcome, he said that the Union Government had not considered proposals to reduce interest rates and downsizing of government.

According to Banerjee, anotherarea which has been ignored is infrastructure. He said that there was "no specific growth-oriented measure for the infrastructure sector."

He was also sceptical of the government's proposal to channelise funds through gram panchayats for the proposed rural development programmes. To this, a couple of BCCI members asked in unison, "will the funds reach the destination?"