PANKERLA ANJIAH/39
Marginal Farmer

Television has reached Pratap Singhram village on the outskirts of Hyderabad-it did that several years ago, actually-but Pankerla Anjiah, who has taken five acres of land on long lease didn't get to catch the Finance Minister on television. Anjiah, a father of four who grows paddy on three acres and cash crops such as chillies, cotton, and vegetables on the other two, begins his day at 4.30 a.m., milks the few buffaloes he owns, does his rounds distributing milk, and then works his land; it's hard work earning a living from land that is, like most in the Telengana region, rain-fed, and the earliest each day ends is 8.30 p.m.. "It is good that the government wants to increase agricultural credit," he says when told of the Budget's green slant, "but there must be a mechanism whereby small farmers who have leased out land are eligible for loans." Anjiah is, however, unequivocally positive about the government's intent to renovate water bodies as that could help rain-fed, un-irrigated land like his own. In sharp contrast to Anjiah's good-but... response is that of P. Chengal Reddy, the Chairman of the Federation of Farmer's Associations in Andhra Pradesh, who spoke to this correspondent while being driven to a TV studio in Delhi. "The Prime Minister and the Finance Minister seem to have realised that a strong agricultural sector and a healthy farming community is critical for the economy." Reddy is obviously more sanguine than Anjiah about the Budget's ability to change the lives of marginal farmers.

-E. Kumar Sharma

VASUKI SUNDARAM/38
Travel Agency Proprietor

Anyone who has doubts as to whether small businesspeople track the Budget need only look as far as Mumbai-based Sundaram. She and a clutch of other small travel agents not only watch the Budget and assess its impact on their sector individually, they "share notes". The lady says she was curious as to what Finance Minister Chidambaram could achieve given the unwieldy coalition he was part of, but admits "the Budget looks pretty remarkable under the circumstances". It should. Sundaram isn't worried about the rise in service tax (from 8 per cent to 10 per cent). "I would pass on these costs to customers," she says, adding that she is just a conduit for the government to collect something from end-users. However, although Sundaram is thrilled by the fact that tourism (along with airports and seaports) has been identified as a focus area for infrastructure projects (with the Finance Ministry catalysing the formation of a consortium of banks that have earmarked Rs 40,000 crore for the same), she would prefer to save her hosannahs till the specifics are laid out. Ashwini Kakkar, the Head of Thomas Cook India and President of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a tad more optimistic. "Now we can do roads, restore monuments, and upgrade infrastructure," he gushes. And another travel industry exec, Arup Sen, Director, Cox & Kings, expects the Budget's rural emphasis to translate eventually into a rural market for his company's offerings. Now, that'd be something.

-Priya Srinivasan

NEELU SHARMA/28
HR Co-Ordinator, Nokia India

From the organisational point of view, Sharma cannot complain about the Budget. It makes mobile phones cheaper (and should, therefore, help her company sell more of them). And by allowing for an increase in the ceiling on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in telecommunications from 49 per cent to 74 per cent, it has increased the chances of more investment coming the sector's way (not that the booming one doesn't get enough already). That, again, will be to the benefit of Nokia, which also sells mobile network equipment. However, from an individual point of view, Sharma doesn't have much to cheer about. "The budget has done nothing for salaried employees," she rues. "We were expecting some tax relief that we haven't got; instead, there's the 2 per cent education cess." And so, Sharma, who believes the Budget has done well to bring the excise duty on computers down to zero and provide for collateral-free educational loans, remains negative about the Budget. None of the provisions, she says, affect salarymen. That's not entirely a fair comment. Half of India's 2.7 crore tax payers earn Rs 100,000 or less a year. And this Budget ensures that anyone in this category no longer pays any tax. The Finance Minister has also articulated his desire to see the "benign interest rate" regime continue, and this means salarymen can continue to borrow money to buy consumer durables, cars, and houses.

-Sahad P.V.

SUBROTO BAGCHI/47
Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Mindtree Consulting

Uender ideal circumstances the budget should matter little to people like Subroto Bagchi, both from an individual and an organisational point of view. In 1998, Bagchi, then a hi-flier at Wipro, quit and with a few other colleagues, founded MindTree Consulting. People in his economic class do not lose sleep over what the Budget will do to their finances, although Bagchi remembers that in 1976, when he started his career, everyone used to queue up at the petrol station the day before the Budget to fill up in anticipation of a hike. "Now, no one cares," he says, "because petrol prices change every few weeks." "This is true for most people, not just me." And circa 2004, the Budget is not supposed to do anything to (or for) companies like Bagchi's. That's not because MindTree is into software; it would have applied even had it been into any other kind of service, even manufacturing (Now, had it been in an agri-business, that would have been interesting). Bagchi is thankful that the Budget ignores the software sector. "I know some software biggies have been calling for scrapping the tax holiday," he says, "but the Indian it success story doesn't owe its success only to the big players; there are numerous small and mid-sized players who are its real pillar of strength." He is happy about the zero duty on PCs, but adds that apart from that he does not see the Budget "having any kind of impact on me as an individual or the company". That's just the way it should be.

-Venkatesha Babu