'Excellent Budget!'

Quite honestly, I think it is an excellent Budget," says Surjit Bhalla, managing director, Oxus Research.

He says a Budget is supposed to be about tax and expenditure. "I think he (Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee) has outlined significant tax reforms, which will be implemented over the next three to six months."

On the expenditure side, the Budget is reasonably controlled, says Bhalla. Though there is the aam aadmi (common man) component to it, Bhalla feels the increase in the fiscal deficit from 6.7 per cent in the Interim Budget to about 6.8 per cent in the General Budget is not too much to be worried about.

The fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent going out of hand is not a concern for him, especially in the current global financial scenario "where all the economies are down."