Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's second effort at an annual budget, due to be presented to India's lower house of parliament today, has already received a setback, thanks to an 'inflationary' railway budget, presented on Wednesday by Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Almost without exception, Indian industry has pilloried Mr Paswan for imposing a hefty 12 per cent rise in rail freight rates.
'Since the freight rates were raised by 10 per cent barely six months ago, the cumulative increase works out to a steep 22 per cent,' Shekhar Dutta, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, said.
Raunaq Singh, chairman of the Delhi-based Raunaq group, said: 'The freight hike will add to the woes of exporters, who are already a harried lot these days.
'Even now it is not too late for the government to exempt export consignments.' Inflation is at 8 per cent.
