As the countdown to the Budget 2009 begins, industry and business houses across the sectors have built high hopes on the more stable ‘new’ Government for bold steps in the Finance Minister’s speech, including a revisiting of the sectoral policies and fiscal reforms.

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may increase spending on power, roads and aid to the poor in next week’s budget to bolster growth in Asia’s third- largest economy.

Mukherjee will deliver the budget for the year to March 2010 at 11 a.m. in parliament in New Delhi on July 6. The 73- year-old politician, who ran a closed economy as the finance minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet from 1982 to 1984, returned to the ministry this year after serving as the defense and foreign minister during the bulk of Singh’s first five-year term.