Tuesday, February 28 2006 14:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Captains of Indian industry and investment bankers today(Feb 28,2006) lauded Finance Minister P Chidambaram for measures to bring in fiscal discipline and cut deficit but had a mixed view on new tax proposals burdening the capital market.

"The industry will be happy as there are no major negatives. It has cut down customs duty and has covered lot of industries as well," CII chief mentor Tarun Das said immediately after presentation of the Budget.

J M Morgan Stanley chairman Nimesh Kampani termed the budget as a good development on fiscal side.

"I think the Minister has done a great job in fiscal deficit, which will be 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2006-07," Kampani said.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Vice Chairman Uday Kotak also welcomed the budget saying it was a positive budget at micro level and was good for long term investors.

However, Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley said it was an 'innocuous budget' and there were no policy initiatives to take the market to higher levels.

"The market hoped much more than reformseven the Prime Minister had talked about out of the box thinking," he regretted.