The party fielded a heavyweight team of Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Sharad Pawar and Jairam Ramesh to present its initial reaction to Yashwant Sinha's second successive Budget and the overall tone of the party's perception was one of criticism, leaving praise for just two areas.

Singh said his party was gratified that the Finance Minister had ``drawn inspiration'' from Digvijay Singh's Education Guarantee Scheme in Madhya Pradesh, on the lines of which Sinha announced a national programme for setting up schools in each kilometre radius in the country.

The second pat was for the move to rationalise the excise duty structure. ``The Congress welcomes the move although the manner in which this is being proposed to be combined with surcharges makes it difficult to assess its precise impact in reviving the economy,'' Singh said.

But therest of it was a harsh attack. ``The last Budget of the 20th century is a totally lacklustre effort. It lacks a basic conceptual framework, an overall design and a vision of how to get an India, mired in industrial recession, facing an export collapse and reeling from the shocks of falling investment in key areas of physical and social infrastructure, moving ahead once again,'' the Congress statement began.

The party felt the Budget fails to improve either business confidence or consumer confidence. There is nothing in the Budget which would assure that the country can once again move back to a seven per cent GDP growth rate, it said. The Budget, like the Economic Survey before it, indulges in statistical manipulation making it extremely difficult to make any meaningful comparisons with the past, the statement added.

It also said the Budget had no rationale for computing the fiscal deficit by excluding small savings collections -- which are basically borrowings and thus, a liability to be repaid.