Budget Analysis: Am happy that it is not populist, says Dharmesh Mehta

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Dharmesh Mehta, MD-Institutional Equities at Axis Capital shares his reactions on Budget 2013.

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview: Q: Did you get any feeling that some of your institutional investors might be a little disappointed because the finance minister (FM) did such a good job of aggressively marketing his Budget before the event. Could that have toned up expectations benchmarked against which it seems like an insipid document? A: The expectations were much higher in India rather than abroad. In fact people are actually happy that it is not a very populist Budget. So infact they are in that sense very happy that he has controlled the fiscal deficit, which he has promised and he has not gone overboard despite all the pressure, which he had especially going into an election year. So in that sense the foreigners won’t be that disappointed. But domestically I think so there is lot of expectation build up on this Budget specially when he visited Mumbai and when he has talked of getting more equity investments. That is where I think a little disappointment has come and as you understand always in India, whenever the Budget comes you expect big-tick reforms, big announcements, which in this Budget was not there. But on the overall front for the global investors, I think this is an okay Budget. They wouldn’t be at all be worried about that. Q: Any nervous calls that you have got from any of your Foreign Institutional Investor (FIIs) about this Mauritius route clarification that he put out and whether that would hamper investment? A: Not yet, if you look at how he started the speech in the Budget is what saying that he wants to have much more transparency. So, I am assuming that it won’t be a big worry for the markets because he himself has said that he doesn’t want to confuse the foreign investors, which is much needed for this kind of markets right now.