FM failed to come out with a bold budget: Sinha

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Stating that the budget was a huge disappointment for the ''aam admi'' and kisans, the BJP today said Finance Minister P Chidambaram had missed a golden opportunity to come out with bold concessions when things were going good excepting the inflation.

Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said the Finance Minister should have been bold enough to offer concessions when the revenue receipts were good and the country had a foreign exchange reserves of 180 billion dollars. Since this is virtually the last budget of this government, Mr Chidambaram had displayed ''cowardice instead of being generous'' to the common man.

Although the Economic Survey had identified inflation as the central issue causing problem, the Finance Minister was conspicuously silent on the measures to check inflation, except expressing hope that the budget will moderate the rising trend.

He said there can be no economic reforms without capital account convertibility and the Finance Minister simply had postponed the problem by palming it on a committee. However, he was silent on economic reforms initiated by Dr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister in the P V Narasimha Rao government.

Despite being a highly taxing FM, his budget proposals were bereft of any taxation philosophy nor there was any unanimity in the government's thinking on host of issues. On one hand the government had given concession on pet foods but not for the common man.

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was contending that Futures were good for India, the FM was saying it should be banned.

He conceded it was the NDA government which had come out with Futures trading but one should look into the stocks position in 2002-03 one of the worst droughts faced by the country. The procurement was in the range of 35 million tonnes besides a piled up