Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has termed the Union Budget as the "best in the most difficult times".

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has presented a progressive budget, which will be good for Indian economy, the CM said here.

Hailing the budget as farmer-friendly, he said it would greatly benefit Andhra Pradesh. The state would benefit from the massive increase in outlays for scheme like JNNURM, female literacy mission, Bharat Nirman, NREGA, National Food Security Mission, reduction of interest rate on crop loans and agricultural credit expansion, he added.

Reddy said the Union Budget should be read with the three economic stimulus packages already announced by the Central Government to face the economic downturn.

He hailed the large number of initiatives aimed at achieving inclusive growth.

The entire effort of the government in making this budget has been to stimulate growth by stepping up investments in infrastructure, in expectation that it will lead to higher levels of growth and consequential higher revenues, he said.

Given the increase in outlay for Indian Infrastructure Finance Corporation Ltd, the state would like to access funds for major projects like Hyderabad Metro Rail and ports, the CM said.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today described the Union Budget as anti-farmer and anti-people.

Strongly criticising the UPA government at the Centre for not making any provision for providing rice or wheat at Rs 3 a kg to BPL families in its 2009-10 budget, the Orissa government today said the state is likely to lose Rs 353.56 crore by way of central assistance.

"Though Congress had promised cheap rice or wheat during elections, no provision was made in the budget presented today ... There was no point in making such promises to the people," Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said today.

"It is seen that the Union budget is broadly a continuance of the existing schemes. The budget does not satisfy the needs of the common man, who is suffering due to steep rise in the prices of essential commodities." he said.    Stating that Orissa            s share in the Central taxes has been reduced from Rs 8849.49 crore indicated in the interim budget to Rs 8495.93 crore in the general budget, he said the poor state would suffer because of the UPA government            s policy.

No special scheme or package had been announced by the Union Finance Minister for Orissa.

"The budget has not increased allocation for the backward KBK districts," he said.

 Patnaik also expressed displeasure over the lack of special allocation in the budget to tackle Maoist threat.

He said that first glance at budget shows that the Central government has done only lip service for the farmers in it.

"The budget has imposed a heavy interest of seven per cent on agricultural loans amounting to over Rs three lakh while Madhya Pradesh government has cut down the loan interest to as low as three per cent from five per cent," he said in a statement.
He said that the relief for farmers is the need of the hour and whatever fringe benefits have been given to the farmers in the budget, have not been classfied.

Chouhan said, that the Union government has not shown any sincere intent in the budget to curb rising prices and counter economic slowdown, and this is going to compound problem of the commoners who are already facing the brunt of economic distress.

He said budget has failed to give relief expected by the cross section of society.

Though, the Chief Minister said, Madhya Pradesh has demanded Rs 24,000 crore for undetaking necessary works in drought affected areas in state, the Central government has shown insensitiveness in this connection in the budget.

"There was a great buzz created by the government regarding big ticket reforms to be introduced in the Budget. But, it did not come up with anything worth mentioning on this front. By putting economic reforms on the backburner, the UPA government will not succeed in realising the dream of 7 or 8 per cent rate of GDP growth in the current challenging environment," said Singh.     The BJP also criticised the Budget for failing to provide any "significant indication" of rise in infrastructure investment.

"Infrastructure creation has been a major casualty during UPA-I. The Budget, either through public investment or fiscal means, does not give any significant indication of rise in infrastructure investment," Swaraj added.     She said that while it was expected that the housing and real estate sector would receive incentives from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, "he preferred a status quo. The housing sector could have helped the economy in these times as it could have generated employment and provided fillip to the economy."   

But, the Opposition party welcomed the introduction of one-rank-one-pension scheme in Armed Forces and abolishing of the "much discredited" Fringe Benefit Tax and Commodities Transaction Tax.

Swaraj said tax concessions provided for electoral funds would help in electoral reforms.

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