The Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram met with business leaders for a pre-budget consultations and hinted that the budget will have a strong rural bias and emphasis. The Government has been saying that investments in agriculture is required to achieve a 4% growth in that sector so that overall sustained economic growth of 8%. Therefore, this year's budget is expected to focus on farm, food processing, and social sectors with investment plans for irrigation projects and labor-intensive sectors such as food processing, textiles, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and telecommunication. He is also expected to unveil funding for healthcare and education. Businesses in India want the Government to withdraw or simplify the controversial fringe-benefit tax (FBT), which taxes companies on business expenses. They also want a tax rationalization so that some sectors are not "punitively" taxed. Currently, the telecom sector faces an excessive licensing fee regime and agriculture-oriented sectors like food processing are treated as luxury goods.