Sinha, who was addressing a post-budget meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said the Budget was not the end of government's efforts to streamline the policies and stimulate economic growth. "If there is a need to make changes, we will not hesitate in making changes in policy and procedure", he said.

Assuring the industry that the Budget was not the end of the dialogue between the government and the industry, Sinha urged the industry to come up with specific suggestions in writing.

At the same time, Sinha defended the Budget by saying that "it should be viewed holistically", keeping in mind the prevalent difficult economic environment, including the industry, exports and fiscal situation. The reports in the media and the Sensex in Mumbai could not be regarded as the totality of the commentary on the Budget, hesaid. "It is also important to capture the reactions of the common man on the street, which are encouraging", Sinha added. Admitting that the excise duty rationalisation was "somewhat mechanical", Sinha said, "we were looking at a formula which was revenue neutral and also allowed us to have three basic rates in the excise structure". However, he ruled out any change in the basic excise structure for specific industries. Sinha said the tax reforms in excise duty would continue in the direction of a central rate and VAT system -- where everything is taxed at the same rate on the value-addition -- which is prevalent in over 100 countries. About customs duty rationalisation, where the rate slabs have been curtailed to five from the existing seven, Sinha said, "concerns of revenue forced me to be less adventurous in this regard".

Sinha said the 10 per cent surcharge imposed on corporate tax will be abolished by the end of the year as it was levied purely as a "temporary" measure. He asked the industry to fixa time frame by which it would be able to compete in the global markets.

Little impact of deferment of Indian Oil divestment

Finance minister Yashwant Sinha said the deferment of disinvestment of five per cent equity in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to the next fiscal will have only "marginal impact" on government's efforts to meet the disinvestment target of Rs 10,000 crore in the current fiscal. Sinha, however, did not quantify the impact. The government has deferred the proposal due to depressed prices of the PSU's scrip. Stating that government is confident of meeting the disinvestment target set in the Budget, Sinha said there will be a large scale strategic sale of several PSUs. He did not divulge names of the PSUs.

"We would not like to lose any time on implementation of the decisions which the government has taken. This is the first time we have talked about privatisation and we are not trying to shy away from it", Sinha added.