India Inc on Thursday cheered the Union Budget as a "dream budget of a different kind" saying steps for rural development, agriculture and employment generation would boost the sentiments for all around economic growth but the stock market gave a thumbs down.
Reacting strongly against the imposition of turnover tax, the BSE index plunged by 112 points.
"This is a dampener for the stock market," CII president Sunil Kant Munjal said.
"Finance Minister P Chidambaram had presented a dream budget in 1997. This again is a dream budget but with a difference. It focuses on overall growth of the industry," CII Director General N Srinivisan said in his reaction.
Munjal gave a thumbs up to the budget and said it was a "directional budget" touching all sectors of the Common Minimum Programme along with providing a "human face" to the entire exercise that lays great emphasis on social spending.
Manoj Choraria, a leading BSE and NSE broker, apprehended a serious fallout of the imposition of 0.15 per cent tax on every transaction of equity saying it would deter the investors from the market. The daily trading volume could fall from an average Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) to Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion), he feared.
Reliance Industries vice president Anil Ambani's initial reaction to the Budget was positive but he was reserved about his comments saying he would first want to analyse all the proposals.