Industry Welcomes NaMo's Union Budget

Needless to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government represent a change for India. This change is primarily bought by the common people, hence they have a huge expectations from this new government. On such backdrop of high expectations and tough economic situation, the only breather for this government is it’s absolute majority in parliament. Among such huge expectations, industrys’ expectations hold very critical part.

All of the above mentioned points and much more influenced Finance Minister Arun Jaitly while he was drafting this year’s Union Budget.

SMEStreet.in tried to explore the reaction on this Budget from some key industry players and found some interesting results.

While giving an interesting reaction on this budget, Alok Saraf, executive director - private and entrepreneurial practice, PwC India said, “Modi government has just served a healthy "Chai" to all the SMEs & start-ups. An investment allowance of 15% for the SME investing more than INR 25 Cr in plant & machinery will be a booster as against the earlier investment threshold of INR 100 Cr to claim the said allowance. An INR 10,000 crore corpus fund and simplified bankruptcy rules may improve the risk taking capabilities along with providing an easy exit opportunity. All in all, the initiatives coupled with sector specific indirect tax benefits are sure to encourage the entrepreneurs.”

While calling this budget as positive and much needed for the Indian SME sector, R. Narayan, Founder & CEO, Power2SME said, “The Union Budget is extremely encouraging for the start-ups and the SMEs. The proposal of establishing a Rs.10,000 crore venture capital fund for start-up firms will act as a catalyst to attract private capital by way of providing equity, quasi equity, soft loans and other risk capital for start-up companies. It will create a favourable ecosystem for the start-ups to flourish. The revision of the MSME definition for high capital ceiling, will enable the SMEs to get greater credit from the market, in turn helping them to grow and expand. Additionally, the setting up of 20 new clusters and sanctioning of Rs. 200 crore for development of 6 more textile clusters will provide a platform for SMEs to share best practices, pool resources and grow their enterprise fast, along with generating employment opportunities, thereby affecting the growth of the Indian economy in a positive manner.”

Ratul Puri, Chairman, Hindustan Powerprojects gave his viewpoint on the budget by adding, “45 days is too less for any government to convert their long term vision into fiscal measures. Having said that, the budget is directional and gives a boost to manufacturing in the country which is very critical for achieving growth. The focus on infrastructure and skilling would be one of the key elements in bringing the fiscal deficit to 4.1%. The other element which comes out clearly is - fiscal prudence. The government has handed the necessary boost to the infrastructure projects by announcing 25 years long term loans from commercial banks.”

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