India's coalition government on Tuesday promised greater spending on rural infrastructure, health care and education, while reducing customs duties and imposing tighter deficit management. 

Presented as a budget for the "common man," the blueprint reflected the balance the government must strike to promote economic development and uplift the lives of its largely poor and rural citizenry.

Speaking to Parliament, the finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, forecast 8.1 percent economic growth for the year ending March 31, 2007, but pledged to increase that rate up to 10 percent in the coming years. 

Subir V. Gokarn, chief economist for Crisil, a credit ratings agency, said the proposed budget appeared to "satisfy all constituencies."

The budget has obvious political repercussions for the Congress Party-led coalition government of Manmohan Singh. Backed by allies from the Communist Party of India, it dislodged its predecessor government with a promise to deliver some of the gains of India's remarkable economic growth to the nearly 300 million Indians who live below the official poverty line.

This year, the Congress Party faces crucial elections, in states where the Communists and other leftist parties are competing for dominance. 

The budget presented by Mr. Chidambaram laid out increases in education and more modest increases in health care. India's expenditure on public health is among the lowest, and critics said the budget did not go far enough to expand access to health care and other social services, considering the pace of economic growth. 

"There is no significant progress in terms of social services," said Subrat Das, research fellow at the Center for Budget and Governance Accountability, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group.

Mr. Chidambaram also proposed projects to rehabilitate roads and airports and expand access to the power supply, all deemed essential to sustaining India's economic growth. The budget also proposed to raise defense spending, reduce the price of certain AIDS and cancer drugs and expand food processing as a means to fuel growth in the country's lagging agricultural sector.

"I believe that growth is the best antidote to poverty," Mr. Chidambaram told Parliament.

Meanwhile, he offered to reduce the budget deficit to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product from 4.1 percent, a step he said was intended to free up resources for infrastructure development. A lower budget deficit would drop India's borrowing costs. 

"Investors, including foreign investors, should like the fiscal deficit numbers and the growth projections," said Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Tele-Ventures, the country's largest cellular services firm.

Mr. Chidambaram, a Harvard-trained lawyer who turned to politics, left corporate and personal taxes untouched, while raising tax rates on certain financial transactions.

Somini Sengupta reported from New Delhi for this article, and Saritha Rai from Bangalore. Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.