CHENNAI: The Union Budget evoked mixed reactions from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) discussion, here on Friday.P Murari, advisor-president, FICCI, welcomed the budget on the counts of increased funding to the tune of Rs 1.93 lakh crore. “However, the increase in allocation of funds to defence should not reflect in the social services sector,” he pointed out.Former chairman and MD of Indian Bank, M S Sundara Rajan, welcomed the provisioning of capitalisation to banks to the tune of Rs 15,888 crore, and Know Your Customer (KYC) depository which would avoid multiplicity of registration and data upkeep.He also welcomed the initiatives including interest subvention of 7 per cent to SHGs upto `3 lakhs, financial inclusions, agriculture credit, and interest subvention to farmers.Former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy termed the budget as ‘mediocre, inflatious, and bureaucratic’ and noted that it had failed to meet the expectations of ‘incremental changes’. Krishnamurthy also observed that no measures were taken to curb corruption and improve governance.“It has also failed an ample opportunity which would have given a definite direction to the development of the country,” he said.M R Sivaraman, former Revenue Secretary to Government of India, said that there was no mention of the amount of money that could be saved through releasing the subsidy directly to the beneficiary with the use of UID-Aadhar. Considering the slow progress of power projects, Sivaraman said that there were no mentions about the pending majors including Koodankulam.
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