In our opinion, the sectors likely to benefit most from the budget are infrastructure, power, textile, education and finance; with significant fillips (such as continuation of tax breaks for power plants, reduction in STT for equity futures & mutual fund units, IDFs & tax free bonds for infrastructure companies) being given to each of these sectors.

The finance minister has also addressed other areas such as opening of India’s first women’s bank, opening of an LIC office in every town (with over 10,000 population), empowering insurance companies to open offices in Tier II cities, permitting banks to also act as insurance brokers, and giving MSME’s the benefit of this status up to 3 years of growing out of this category.

There is mixed news for retail investors, with the tax slabs being unchanged but with securities transaction tax being reduced. The finance minister has amended the Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme and the eligibility has been increased to people having an annual income of 12 Lakhs from 10 Lakhs. The duration has also been increased from one year to three years, giving a breather for first time investors to space out their investments.

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