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The Chakravartys with their pet Pogo at their Bistupur flat in Jamshedpur on Thursday. Picture by Animesh Sengupta
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Jamshedpur, Feb. 28: Manish Chakravarty, a civil and telecom contractor in Bistupur, is pleasantly surprised that finance minister P. Chidambaram gave him two reasons to please his wife.
The Union budget, seemingly out to pinch the affluent, has hidden treasures, smiled 39-year-old Manish who earns around Rs 5 lakh a year. “There’s zero custom duty on electrical machinery and an additional interest deduction of Rs 1 lakh on the first home loan up to Rs 25 lakh. So I can buy my wife an LCD and a flat in a good locality,” he said.
He was also sceptical about set-top boxes getting dearer. “They are compulsory in metros and soon will be mandatory in Jamshedpur. Imagine, buying TV won’t pinch us, but watching it will!” he laughed.
Wife Laya Sahai Chakravarty (37), a homemaker, gave PC a thumbs up for not proposing a hike on cooking gas and consumer durables such as refrigerators, air conditioners.
But the budget was not all hunky dory for Chakravarty and Laya.
Laya was sore about the service tax on air-conditioned restaurants. “We like eating out twice a week. I think the finance minister could have done away with the service tax bit. It literally leaves a bitter taste in the mouth for foodies like us,” she said. “Pogo, our eight-month-old pug, has no such worries,” she laughed.
Hubby Manish added that the proposed imposition of 6 per cent duty on high-end cellphones did not go down well with mid-level professionals like him.
“We can’t go around with cheap Chinese-make mobiles. You have to stay connected to the internet while travel. Increasing duty on cellphones over Rs 2,000 will hurt middle class professionals and office-goers,” he said.
The biggest worry for Manish, a keen car rally lover, is the proposed imposition of 100 per cent custom duty on SUVs. “I was planning to save up for a Toyota Avanza later this year. But the budget has made it a little dicey,” said the executive member of Bengal Motor Sports Club and Himalayan Motor Sports, who owns a Bolero and a Safari.
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