The Hindu Business Line : Thin attendance, minimal interruptions — Top CEOs at industry chambers largely non-committal

That Budget presentations are gradually becoming passé was very much in evidence today when many members of the Lok Sabha failed to turn up for what a decade ago used to be the `big day' in the life of every citizen. Large gaps were seen among both the Treasury and the Opposition benches when the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram rose at 11 a.m. on Tuesday to present the third budget of the Manmohan Singh Government. The more than an hour-and-half speech of the Finance Minister passed without any hitch, the interruptions being occasional and that too died down very soon. Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, just back after a brief hospitalisation, found the going very easy compared to any normal day in the House.

`LS creche'

As is expected, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi sat through the presentation, but with impassive faces. Leader of the Opposition L. K. Advani too was there, generally stroking his chin for most of the time. Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was also present, but preferred to take a backbench so as to avoid walking down all the way to his allotted seat in the front row of the Opposition benches. On the Treasury side, most of the young MPs like Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Naveen Jindal et al sat in one single row, leading to a comment from a media person that this row was actually the Lok Sabha ``crèche.''

Action, if any, was outside the Parliament building complex. For the first half of Finance Minister speech, where he spoke about allocations for various Government-sponsored schemes and outlined broader thrust areas, some of the country's top CEOs sat calm at the various industry chambers, sharing an occasional comment but largely looking non-committal. Even the media section at the chambers was without much activity, with most reporters busy trying to decipher what the FM was saying on the overall economic situation with frenzied writing on notepads and waiting for the speech to end so that they could chase a CEO for comments and analysis.

Sigh of relief

However, the moment Chidambaram paused just before getting to that part of the speech which deals with the various tax proposals, a collective sigh escaped the representatives of India Inc. Everybody anxiously waited for the FM to spill out the details.

While the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) had installed large TV screens at the India Habitat Centre where both the media and the CEOs sat around to listen to the Budget speech, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry made arrangements at its headquarters for its members. Not to be outdone, several television channels had set up their studios at these locations to get on-the-spot reactions from the corporate honchos who were busy juggling their time and presence between addressing the print and the electronic media.

Jubilation

It was only when the FM went on to announce a series of concessions on excise, customs and other taxes during the last part of his speech, did the audience show some response. The CEOs expressed a sigh of relief when the FM said "the good news is that there will be no change in the rates of personal income-tax or corporate income-tax". The jubilations were more evident when the FM added "the other piece of good news is that no new taxes are being imposed". Once it was all over, the wide grin was there on the face of those sectoral representatives who had got something out of the Budget. As for the others, they were trying hard to formulate their views, which the jostling journos were keenly seeking.