Finance Minister P. Chidambaram presented the much-anticipated budget that looked and felt like an election-year budget. Therefore, with the economy doing well, the thinking seems to not do much; consequently, the budget is very unimaginative. The Government borrows 22% of its budget and pays 21% in interest. No new taxes, no oil, natural gas, and kerosene price increases, no new economic reforms, duty cuts some items for smaller cars, some ready made food products, and made significant modifications to the unpopular fringe benefit taxes. He did raise the service tax marginally, securities transaction tax by 25%, and minimum alternate tax to 10%. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was allocated USD 3.3 billion; defense expenditure budget was increased by USD 1.3 billion; irrigation outlay to USD 1.2 billion; rural health increased to USD 1.6 billion; rural sanitation to USD 150 million; children mid-day scheme to USD 1.2 billion; and farm credit corpus was raised to USD 35 billion to benefit another 5 million farmers. Abolishing the 1-6 rule that required major purchases be allowed only for tax paying citizens, he projected revenue increases from direct tax to be USD 1.2 billion and indirect taxes at USD 700 million. He projected a gross national product growth of up to 8% and revenue deficit of 2.1% and fiscal deficit 3.8%. He did not say how he plans to bridge the deficit gap and did not reveal plans to increase the tax base; revenue from income tax continues to be a low 11%. The only far-sighted programs in the budget that would help industrial growth are plans to make specialized industrial towns, focus to make India a textile hub, and increased focus on creating semiconductor fabrication units. Despite increased social expenditure, communist allies complained of lack of adequate investments in agriculture or employment generating projects. They accused the Government of departing from the common minimum program of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and letting the aam admi or common man down. The Indian industry commended the budget as practical.